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General Manager/Interim VP/Virtual CEO

General Manager/Interim VP/Virtual CEO

Work Experience

13 years freelance interim managemet/consulting in IT/Telecoms/Financial services.

General Manager
Marketing VP
HR
Change/Programme manager

Total 15 years consulting including trainng and development both design and delivery. Soft skills such as sales and customer service.

Time in investment company, engineering and financial services.

Multi Lingual and good multi cultural sensitivity


Education

BA HOns Dutch

MSc Politics



Skills

Creative Strategy development
Team building
Behavioural change
Good writing skills
Public speaking
Facilitation and gorup management
Counselling/mentoring at senior level


Languages

Dutch French German
English mother tongue

Some Swedish and Spanish

Other

Personal Information
Married, no children. Fully mobile worldwide.
British national
Languages
Good: Dutch, French, German
Basic: Spanish & Swedish, some Italian.
Education
BA(Hons) Dutch & Swedish
MSc Dutch Colonial Politics
BS Psychology

Summary
An energetic and experienced Interim General Manager with a major in marketing and a minor in HR as well as a broad knowledge of industry and cultures. Focus on developing businesses in the e-revolution both from a marketing and strategic aspect.
Highly creative with a reputation for innovative approaches to problems.
Culturally sensitive and effective through difficult times. Focused especially on the human aspects of change and the commercial implications thereof.
Specialising in technical businesses with a need to convey commercial messages to non-technical customers and management
Experienced in European, Middle Eastern, North American and Asian business and culture.

Some Interim Management Assignments

Cabletron Systems: A major player in the network hardware fields, competing directly with companies such as CISCO and Nortel. Hired to create a Partner and Accreditation Programme after the switch to an indirect sales model. Also took role of Communications Director, Head of Marketing and HR Director at different times during this major transition in strategic approach. Worked with MD and Sales director on implementation and with another consultant on revamping the market and organisation strategy. Integrated Digital acquisition into Cabletron. Company was reshaped ready for its later split into four operating units prior to IPO.

Celemi AB: A privately owned Swedish marketing and consulting practice. Founder of the UK business and principal UK shareholder wanted to expand his role internationally so I was hired as General Manager to ‘professionalise’ the practice, create a sales operation and broaden the customer base with proper marketing programmes. All four achieved, I moved on after placing a permanent General Manager in the role. Fees doubled and we tripled our customer base over 6 months.

Digital Networks: US based spin out from Cabletron Systems and formed from DEC’s networking division DNPG prior to the sale of the rest of DEC to Compaq. Operated as Marketing Director, HR Director and Mentor to newly appointed EMEA General Manager. Set up operations in UK, France, Belgium and Germany. Recruited new staff and arranged transition of staff from Cabletron to Digital Networks International Ltd. Work with accountants and lawyers and recruiters to make the EMEA operation a reality. Company in Europe sits currently 35% ahead of year 1 profit target.

Frontline Distribution: Initially hired as a strategy consultant advising on future direction of the company. Became the Director of Quality and HR. Implemented a major culture change programme after the sale to a German company as well a senior management development programme to create a professional cadre in a very young management team. Managed a customer perception tracking survey and improved perception by some 20 points over a total period of 2 years.

Hoskyns: Created an implementation programme for end-user training, both generic and custom. Developed training programmes for DSS and DfE as well as the British Library and J Sainsbury.

MERANT PLC: MERANT was formed by the merger of MicroFocus PLC and INTERSOLV Inc. My role as EMEA VP Marketing was to create a European marketing operation initially for the former MicroFocus Division and later for the whole company. Launched and managed the European end of the Egility strategy designed to reposition the company as a player in the e-Business field and capitalise on its core mainframe/COBOL skills and software tools/consulting for legacy extension and web-to host/host-to-web transitions.

NUC Ltd. (Microsoft Upgrade Centre): Created, by me while consulting for Microsoft, as an exclusive distributor of Upgrade software solely for Microsoft. Later hired as Group MD to broaden the customer base, open up new business areas and widen the scope of the Microsoft relationship. Company went from 0 to GBP12m is first year. I returned the company to profitability and increased turnover to GBP20m and net profits to GBP3.5m. Opened a Microsoft pre-sales call centre and a Fulfilment Centre: also a Compaq Upgrade Centre in Ireland, a US subsidiary and a dealership specialising in back office software and naturally focusing on Microsoft, though not uniquely. We also began distribution of games software and consoles.

Consulting Assignments: shorter assignments, with the implementation usually run by company staff
· Sales training for US global financial organisation
· Sales management development for European training company
· Mentoring for newly appointed MDs of 2 of the largest IT distributors in UK (Ingram and C2000)
· Mentoring for management team of French auto parts distributor and manufacturer
· Mentoring for management team of Dutch multi national: 2 divisions
· Mentoring and strategic advice for MBI team in ERP publisher
· Strategy and quality and marketing support to board for Israeli Software house
· Strategy and TQM for major Brittish building society
· TQM programme across Europe for US multinational in high tech manufacturing.
· TQM for water company
· TQM for US bank
· Establish Research Consultancy focussing on Customer Satisfaction ($500,000 and profitable).
· Working with ad agency on creating a retention and development campaign for MSDN
· Brand development for US networking manufacturer (not Cabletron)
· Set up a ‘virtual network services’ company for private shareholders in US
· Advised on acquisitions for three small Californian Software companies and then arranged merger
· Sold distributor of specialist auto parts to major manufacturer
· Created new technical training organisation in US and Switzerland for manufacturer of high tech valve making equipment
· Merged separate development labs for software company in India and Europe

Career positions

3i Consultants, Regional Director
§ Established and ran Change management consulting operation within the business in general
§ Re-focus business on its own investments: almost all SME’s and undergoing significant change
§ Developed marketing programme for the consultancy based on new business model
§ Launched a seminar programme for the Investors and customers
§ Bring moribund regional office back to profitability ($1m fee income rate, 30% personally generated). P&L responsible.
§ Redeveloped the recruitment business
§ Instigated and implemented research on customer requirements
I held a number of senior positions, some concurrently in the developing matrix organisation.
§ Regional Director: Resources and Staff Development
§ Regional Director: Southern Region
§ Director of Intellectual Property Company managing the consultancy’s know-how
§ Director of wholly owned Recruitment Consultancy
§ Liaison Manager with Enterprise Support, the DTI consultancy initiative.
Some Personal Assignments
§ New strategy for NCC
§ Acquisition and integration post acquisition for PCB manufacturer
§ Merger of Cabling company and PC dealership
§ Strategy plan and implementation for Channel Islands Growers Co-op: profitable again in 4 months
§ Re-build Strategy and management team for BT cable laying subsidiary: Prepared for sale to main competitor.
§ Post privatisation management development for BT and PowerGen
§ Implement government funded consulting programme for SMEs
§ Sales programme for motoring organisation
§ Re-tooling of factory for laundry equipment manufacturer

Wilson Learning Minneapolis Minnesota
Strategy Consultant, VP Distribution (EMEA), VP Curriculum Design & Consulting (EMEA
Wilson Learning was one of the US’ biggest Soft Skills training consultancies with operations all around the world including UK, France and Germany.
My roles included Strategy Consulting for major accounts in EMEA region (including USD500k personal fee income), development and customisation of multi-lingual training programmes in Sales, Management and Customer Service and managing, developing and joint marketing with Distribution Network across EMEA region (cUSD10m and profitable)

Artur Fischer GMbH Frankfurt Germany
Marketing Director ‘fischer C-Box’, UK Marketing Manager ‘fischerfixings’, UK Marketing Manager ‘fischertechnik’
This company manufactures and sells moulded plastic products across several industry sectors. It is German and the UK is its biggest subsidiary. I created a full repositioning of two of the product lines and trebled sales, doubled profits including making a profit on the toy range for the first time ever outside the German home market.

AmHoist Inc. St Paul Minnesota
International Sales & Marketing Manager
The company was a manufacturer of very heavy engineering products including Cranes, Presses, Shears and Road building machinery, based in St Paul MN, USA.
Initially hired to run the European Sales Administration for the Scrap division. After managing the closure of the UK factory (1600 people) I moved to the Cranes and Road divisions where I managed the EMEA distributors.
Trained in both HR and Marketing in our Atlanta operation, I worked for 6 months as HR Officer for two US factories and for 6 months in Middle East as the local Marketing Manager.

Life assurance industry

Brought in to Sun Life on the then Fast Track graduate entry programme. Ran the Branch administration in Reading and the Pensions Department in Slough. Managed the region’s two biggest broking clients, who had their own distinct sections in the branches. Threefold increase in business from each.
Moved to NPI as a Life Inspector (Salesman) and exceeded target by 100% in first year.
Headhunted to join Swiss Life in the City where I developed an international broking network in Middle East and US focussing on expatriates and third country nationals.


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