With more than two decades of experience Jake Abma has proven to be a world-recognized thought leader on inclusiveness and digital accessibility.
For the last decade Jake has set up new directions for ING Bank by solving challenges in finding best practices improving processes and technology solutions.
Authoring the global legal standard for accessibility, the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) at the W3C, serving ambassadorship for the UN CRPD, chairing interbank working groups, and being part of many other working groups like the W3C’s Accessibility Maturity Model Task Force, Jake’s experience supersedes in effective and efficient leadership making inclusive projects easier and cheaper to implement.
Contact Me
Contact me through my LinkedIn page, or e-mail.
Background
Specializing in multiple disciplines from Design, UX, Interaction Design, Development, Product Ownership, Accessibility Lead, to participating in, and chairing of, multiple working groups Jake has extended experience in the technology stack for building inclusive products.
When more than a decade ago his mother got a thrombosis and he saw that she needed to learn everything all over again and had serious problems using digital products, Jake realized how important it is for those products to be as accessible as possible.
Together with his experience in IT he committed himself to make sure to deliver a contribution to make the world a bit more inclusive.
Implementation Manager LYNX EU Accessibility Act (EAA)
At LYNX Broker, an online broker, Jake help shape a long-term Design for All strategy by creating accessibility policies and leading the technical implementation of inclusive solutions.
His role involves coordinating across IT, marketing, and customer service, ensuring compliance with European accessibility standards, driving EAA improvement plans, monitoring progress, and organizing audits to secure effective and sustainable accessibility.
Founder and CPO | Funka Max
Working as a Strategic Advisor at Funka Max, where Jake supports organizations in becoming more accessible and inclusive by aligning their digital services with international accessibility standards.
Within Funka Max Jake developed the Design For All Platform, gaining valuable insights into measuring your organization’s maturity in accessibility and inclusive design across different projects, countries, teams, departments, or a combination of them.
Strategic Advisor | Maturity Model
At ASN Bank, Jake developed and implemented a sustainable accessibility strategy that integrated dashboards, roadmaps, and SOPs to track progress and manage risks.
He also launched an Accessibility Champions Program and Playbook, empowering teams to lead inclusion efforts and embed accessibility into daily operations.
Organizational Insights & Creation
At Wolters Kluwer, Jake drove organizational awareness and strategy around digital accessibility by connecting business goals with inclusive design practices.
He provided insights into user needs, embedded accessibility into workflows across teams, and developing tailored policies and tools to ensure accessibility becomes a lasting part of the company’s culture and quality standards.
Accessibility Lead for ING Bank
For more than a decade Jake has set up a raft of initiatives at ING Bank to make sure products and services are accessible to people with the widest range of capabilities.
Since then, Jake has been a passionate promoter of accessibility. He has made sure that accessibility principles can be found within ING’s user interface design system.
Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG WG)
From an international perspective Jake is an invited expert in the WCAG WG (the working group for the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) of the W3C. This is the global and often legal standard for accessibility.
The mission of the Accessibility Guidelines Working Group (AG WG) is to develop guidelines to make Web content accessible for people with disabilities and to develop and maintain implementation support materials for the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG).
Dutch Payments Association
Nationally chairing the Workgroup Accessibility and Inclusivity (WTI Dutch Payments Association), Jake was responsible for leading the maturing of inclusiveness and accessibility for all the big banks in the Netherlands.
The group, ING Bank, ABN AMRO Bank, Rabobank, Triodos Bank, and De Volksbank, provides a collaborative and connecting platform for members to discuss operational, tactical and practical topics related to inclusivity and accessibility, and to arrive at interpretation, tools, knowledge-sharing, guidelines and concrete collaborative projects
ECSG European Accessibility Act Task-Force
The ECSG must ensure that its website, publications, documentation, and related tools comply with the EAA requirements, while integrating these requirements into the Volume for stakeholders through references to the Directive or specific provisions.
This compliance should be achieved within the Directive’s implementation timeframe in Belgian law, in close liaison with relevant European standardization bodies (CEN, CENELEC, ETSI) and consumer associations.
Ambassador UN CRPD
Since 2016 Jake has been very active as an ambassador of the UN CRPD and actively contributes to spread the knowledge and to raise awareness of the existence and necessity of the rights of people with disabilities.
“The CRPD changed the definitions,” Jake explains. “It was no longer the person who had a problem, but the product, service or environment; if it had barriers that hindered a disabled person’s full participation in society on an effective and equal basis with others, then it needed changing.”
Platform Digitoegankelijk BZK
For the Ministry of Internal Affairs Jake is also advising the government on these topics from within the Platform Digitoegankelijk.
The Platform Digitoegankelijk (Platform Digital Accessibility) of the Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations will propose amendments, ideas, concerns, interpretation and clarification of the Web Guidelines into consideration and issue a non-binding opinion thereon to the Ministry of Internal Affairs.