CEO stories

Heineken’s former CEO, Jean-François van Boxmeer and Alexandra Jankovich, Co-founder & Managing Partner of SparkOptimus are looking back on the past 5 years of global partnership. Together they discuss digital initiatives, transformation strategies and innovative start-ups and what it takes to lead in digital as one of the world’s largest brewers.

As Heineken’s former CEO, Jean-François van Boxmeer doubled revenues while leading digital transformation. Looking back on the past 5 years of global partnership with SparkOptimus, he talks about embracing technology, digital leadership, and learning from failures.

Hanneke Faber, President Global Foods & Refreshment at Unilever, and listed by Fortune as one of the world’s most powerful women, discusses her leadership style with Alexandra Jankovich, as well as how she’s getting out on the edge with sustainability, technology and cultural change to win markets and do good.

Embracing disruption: In 2017, Edeka – Germany’s largest supermarket chain – partnered up with online supermarket Picnic to disrupt its own market. Joris Beckers, co-founder of Picnic, talks about the partnership in our new video.

Eddie Perdok, CEO of Kramp, took sales from 0 to 95% online, tripling turnover in ten years to become Europe’s largest supplier of agricultural parts. He talks to Alexandra Jankovich about how he’s now building for the future, heading off disruption from Amazon, and why to be a leader in digital, you need to think people first, digital second.

In 2010, bol.com faced a pivotal question: grow new product categories or expand into streaming? Daniel Ropers, former CEO of bol.com, talks about working with SparkOptimus on the strategy.

Pieter van der Does, co-founder and CEO of Adyen, offered clients a ‘subscription to innovation’, where traditional banks had neglected the payments sector as ‘dull’. He is now aiming for 1 trillion transactions.

Daniel Ropers led bol.com from less than €10m to more than €1.7bn in sales, successfully turning disruption into growth. He explains how in conversation with Alexandra Jankovich, showing that to seize digital opportunities, you must be continuously ready to make changes, update goals, and explain why.

Joris Beckers shares how the online supermarket Picnic is becoming the best milkman on earth. Amongst other initiatives, they offer minute-precise delivery, eliminate food waste by using data, refund customers without asking questions, test new concepts first and ask for “permission” later, and only sell products that customers really want.

Petri Hofsté (Supervisory board member Rabobank, Achmea, Fugro, and Pon Holdings) talks about responsible leadership and advocates for a new way to approach education in the future, closing the gap between need and supply of knowledge and skills. “The responsibility aspects of leadership should be more prominent and in the crisis period they are now becoming more prominent, as of course the prime focus is on the well-being of people, their health and safety. Without that there is no continuity of the business.”

André Hoffmann (Vice-Chairman of the Board, Roche Holding Ltd): “We have decided some years ago that the only way to measure business is for financial flows, but we do not account at any stage of the impact our businesses have on social systems, on human systems, and our natural system. As a shareholder, I would like to know the impact that the companies I’m invested in are having on the planet.”

Benoît Coquart (CEO, Legrand): “You need to be humble enough to understand: if [your product] doesn’t fulfill the need of the customer, it will be good for the books, but not for the business.” Benoît Coquart explains how to stay relevant and serve the customer while being “technology-agnostic”.