Meet Christophe, Director Warehousing Belgium
Since October 2022, Christophe has been working as our new Director Warehousing Belgium.
A new face in a new new job. High time for an interview in which we find out more about what Christophe will be doing at H.Essers.
How did you grow into this role?
Christophe: “Before I made the move to H.Essers, I spent 14 years at Katoen Natie as Managing Director of Soft Commodities,
which is also a position in Warehousing. Warehousing is, in short, the storage of goods and everything that comes with it.”
Soft Commodities are products that are grown such as cocoa beans and coffee beans, for example, and those were exactly
my focus at Katoen Natie. Now I can bring these years of experience in warehousing to this new position. In total, I worked
at Katoen Natie in Antwerp for 19 years, and now I am coming back home to Limburg.”
What will your main tasks be?
Christophe: “It is a management position in which I will manage our Warehousing branch in Belgium and be in charge of
6 Belgian Business Unit Managers. I myself report to Carlo Theunissen, our COO. Furthermore, I will be responsible
for new projects that present themselves, such as a critical review of our Warehouse Management System. That is the
software we use to manage and control our operations.
We’re now also looking to developing further in Zemst, Ghent, and Genk. There are sites there that we want to build on,
and we are currently in the course of attracting new customers so that we can achieve that goal.”
Why was this position created?
Christophe: “It has to do with the rapid growth I mentioned earlier. We have several more sites now than a couple of years ago,
and there were several acquisitions abroad. That is why it was decided to recruit someone new to manage the
Belgian branch of Warehousing, so that Carlo Theunissen can dedicate the necessary time on Warehousing abroad.”
What are your biggest challenges in 2023?
Christophe: “First and foremost: I want to get settled in here as fast as possible, and I still have some work to do to get to know
H.Essers as a group. The people, the operation, what is important,what choices were made in the past and why, what the customer
portfolio looks like, etc. Another challenge is growth. Some examples of where we want to grow are sites like Zemst, Ghent, and Genk
as I mentioned earlier. The third challenge is to support and successfully complete ongoing projects such as the start-up of our site
in Lommel, and the various commercial negotiations. And finally, I would like to initiate various improvement projects start up, for
example around how we can use our Warehouse Management System more efficiently.”
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