“Fruit and vegetables are essentially a people’s business. In the end, it’s all about creativity, agility, close collaboration and passion for our pure-plant products. Finding people who share that passion and nurturing the talent we have in our company are crucial for the future growth of our company.”
“Creating a working environment where everyone can feel safe and at home, is one of our top priorities. In 2023, we took another major step with the establishment of our Diversity, Equity & Inclusion committee. As a multinational that operates worldwide, Greenyard already has a quite diverse workforce, but we do not yet see this diversity represented at every level of our company.”
“There is also a direct link to the purpose of our company. As we are sourcing and selling in over 80 countries, we need our organisation to accurately reflect these markets. Diversity drives innovation and helps us to better understand the consumers we are working for. When people from different backgrounds work together, we are much quicker to identify blind spots, biases and false assumptions.”
“Focus on internal growth is another major focus point. Last year, we saw some great examples of this at the top level of our company. When Francis Kint became CEO of the Group, which was an internal promotion, his vacant position as Managing Director of the Frozen division was taken up by Anna Jęczmyk, the former Director of Poland for the division. We saw a similar scenario at the top our Prepared division, where Dominique Stinckens, who retired from this role as Managing Director, was followed up by his right-hand and former Finance Director Johnny Van Holzaet.
“Additionally, both were also succeeded by strong internal candidates, with Anneleen Cornelissen who became the new Finance Director in our Prepared division and Wojciech Kapka who succeeded Anna Jęczmyk as Managing Director of Frozen Poland. These are great examples for all our employees, and it also ensures that expertise that took years to build remains within our company.”
“Sharing knowledge and learning from each other is also the common thread through our Group Development Programs, which stimulate people to look beyond their own entity and their own field of expertise, and work together on strategic themes. As a follow-up to our Leadership Development track, we launched our first Game Changers program in 2023 for our upcoming talent. Judging from the great ideas they came up with, these are definitely the people that will make the difference in the future!”