NETHERLANDS – Dutch multinational beer giant, Heineken has announced that Dolf van den Brink has taken over the baton from Jean-François van Boxmeer as the company’s new CEO and Chairman of the Executive Board.
Dolf van den Brink, who was announced as Boxmeer’s successor in February this year, assumed the position on June 1st and will now build on Jean-François van Boxmeer’s legacy following an impressive 22-years career at Heineken.
Jean-François van Boxmeer joined Heineken as a management trainee in 1984. After a number of international management positions, he was appointed member of the Executive Board in 2001. In 2005, Boxmeer was appointed Chairman of the Executive Board and CEO of Heineken.
Mr. van Boxmeer has been credited with bringing Heineken to where it is today. Under his stewardship, the company more than doubled in size due to both strong organic growth and transformational deals that turned Heineken into one of the the most global iconic brands brewer.
During Jean-François’ almost 15 years as CEO, Heineken completed over EUR 30 billion of acquisitions across the globe and increased the company’s size more than two-folds. Dolf van den Brink is now expected to steer the company well into future growth.
“I feel humbled and honored to follow in the footsteps of Jean-Francois van Boxmeer and I look forward to build on his impressive legacy,’ Dolf van den Brink commented of his first day in office.
“We are living in a time of intense disruption and impact for all of us. I feel deep sympathy, compassion and pride how we all are taking care of each other and adapting to new ways of working.
“Heineken can only do well, if society and the environment around us is doing well too. Together with the Executive Team, I am confident that we will successfully navigate this crisis, while building a bright future.”
Like his predecessor, Dolf van den Brink has also worked with Heineken for 22 years. Most recently, he served as the company’s president of the Asia Pacific region and has also served in other position across all four continents.
While announcing his nomination in February, Jean-Marc Huët, Chairman of the Supervisory Board mentioned that coupled with his leadership experience in all four continents, the board was confident that “Dolf van den Brink is the right CEO for the company in the next phase of growth and development, building on Jean-François van Boxmeer’s great legacy.”
Dolf van den Brink takes over at a time when the global economy is experiencing major negative macro-economic development as a result of the pandemic that has spread to to all geographies. This saw the company register a 2.1% decline in organic growth during the first quarter of 2020.
While the initial impact of the Covid-19 crisis affected the company’s volume performance in the first quarter, Heineken said that the effect is expected to worsen in the second quarter of 2020 and spill over to the second half of the year as lockdowns may be lifted but the impact on the economy is likely to remain.
Due to lack of visibility on the end date of the Covid-19 pandemic and the duration of its impact on the economy, Heineken withdrew its entire guidance for 2020.
However, in the recent past the company says that it has taken necessary measures to reduce its costs, secure additional financing and adapt to the fast changes in the markets. In April, the company announced that it had successfully placed €1.5bn billion worth of Notes.
