“Our Iceberg is Melting”, the book by John Kotter on change management was given to me as a present from my mentor at Philips.
I’ve always associated myself with the mindset of Fred the penguin: someone who creates a feeling of urgency by helping others realise why change is necessary and why it’s important to take action immediately.
I gained the necessary experience in a number of positions and sectors. After 13 years at Philips (the last six of which as country manager Philips Belux), I’ve been working now for seven years at Groep Van Roey where I am responsible for strategy, marketing and sales at group level.
What gives me energy is helping organisations to implement change successfully in difficult times. Not only to create the ability to stand out, but also to grow in a sustainable way in a world that is changing more and more quickly and becoming more complex.
So, together with my team, I continuously invest time in a better understanding and following of the main macro social-economic, ecological and technological trends that impact the construction sector in which we are active. Examples here are urbanisation, an ageing society, climate change and industry 4.0 (IoT).
You can’t bring about change on your own. I believe it’s important to work together closely with promising young colleagues so that they too promote the importance of change and guarantee this for the future.
What innovative solutions can we as Groep Van Roey provide as the motor for sustainable growth?
As a group we want to improve the quality of life of people by creating liveable sustainable environments where people enjoy living, working, learning and engaging in sports. We aim to achieve this vision by means of our sustainable strategy that aims at both optimisation of our business processes and innovation.
By means of industrialisation and digitalisation (BIM), we are seeing a significant increase in productivity on our sites. Modular construction (such as Skilpod) makes high-quality living affordable once more. To achieve the climate targets by 2030, CO2 emission must be reduced drastically. This is possible with green affordable decentralised energy solutions (with IFTech) at building and district level, and also the offering of Maintenance and Energy Performance Contracts (OEPC) to make the existing legacy sustainable.
The need for a climate-neutral economy is accelerating the speed at which circular construction is being adopted. The investment cost of a building on completion is no longer relevant, it is the lifecycle cost that is important now.
Due to the complexity of these challenges, we can only solve them successfully by working together actively with various partners within our group and with various external complementary partners.
In my opinion the key to success lies in co-creation and asynchronous reciprocity.
