At one level, it's hard to judge how well he would slot in. You can't simply compare job titles, particularly of c-level execs and senior managers across organisations. The CEO of one football club might spend 80% of their time doing football related stuff and most of the finances are dealt with by the CFO. While at another football club the CEO might be entirely finance led and simply hands off all the football stuff to a different management team.
Likewise a DOF at one club might be the true centre or power who picks the manager, buys players and all the rest. At another club all they might do is provide bridge the gap between the CEO/Board and the staff, inputting technical advice upwards and supporting the manager.
Plus there's the fact that United are about four times bigger than Ajax. Some of that will be accounted simply by first team salaries, but United will still be a much larger and more complex organisation. I'm CEO of an organisation with 50 staff. If I became Deputy CEO of an organisation with 200 staff, that would be a step up, not down.
So its impossible to get a like for like comparison in terms of duties and experience. However what I will say is that VDS has shown himself to be competent in the higher echelons of management, while our current senior execs haven't. So for the sake of injecting some experience and talent into the club, I'm generally favourable. The fact that he gets our club and is a likeable guy is a nice bonus.