Marco van Leeuwen has today officially joined the board of directors of vegetable breeding company Rijk Zwaan in De Lier.
Van Leeuwen succeeds Anton van Doornmalen, and together with Ben Tax and Kees Reinink now forms the three-headed management team, which is jointly responsible for the entire enterprise, with each member having his own attention area. Tax has taken over the chairmanship from Anton van Doornmalen.
Van Leeuwen will concentrate in particular on production, logistics and commercial affairs.
Van Leeuwen, who has worked at Rijk Zwaan since 1993, has been assistant-director for the past five years. During that time he was involved, among other things, in setting up and developing Rijk Zwaan Italy and was interim director of Rijk Zwaan Nederland.
Van Leeuwen said: “In spite of the present consolidation battles among breeding companies, we want to keep Rijk Zwaan growing under its own steam. Major challenges in this will be in particular investments in research & development and continued international expansion. Due to the fact that new varieties are being developed ever faster, marketing and efficiency will also start to play a bigger part.”
Van Doornmalen remains a shareholder in Rijk Zwaan and will continue to be active within the company in the coming years. He will become chairman of the Advisory Council and continue to represent the company in trade organisations Plantum, ESA and ISF.
Van Doornmalen said: “Marco has the ability to keep a good overall view and, where necessary, implement structure. Combined with his broad, international experience, he is in the perfect starting position to give further form to the commercial development of our company.”
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