Joost Donkers of FrieslandCampina has been voted Supply Chain Professional of the Year 2018. He will act next year as Dutch ambassador of the field of supply chain management.
Donkers, working as Director End2End Supply Chain of the Ingredients Business Group at FrieslandCampina, won the annual Supply Chain Professional election on Wednesday 20 June, leaving fellow candidates Mark van Abeelen of Ricoh Europe SCM and Hans Omvlee of Bunge Loders Croklaan behind.
According to jury chairman Jack van der Veen, Donkers scored highly with an appealing story, his initiative and communication skills. "In this, he brings his own personality and achieves handsome results that way. He can connect both inside and outside the company, is a co-creator and stands up for his team without sacrificing himself."
'Maybe we can do this even better'
During the award ceremony, Donkers thanked the judges for their sometimes slightly intimidating questions in the assessments. "The questions from the supply chain peers during the final day also made me realise that we are far from there yet. Maybe I managed to answer the questions, but often I also thought to myself: maybe we can do this even better. We have a team of 3,000 people in our business unit and that entire team should be proud of this result. That team consists of the people who, at three o'clock in the morning, make the decision whether something is safe or not, whether production can continue or not. Those are the people who matter."
Roundtable discussions on leadership, strategy and processes
The election Supply Chain Professional is an annual initiative of Supply Chain Media in cooperation with Inspired-Search, for the recruitment of candidates, and BLMC, for the assessments of the finalists. At Fort Vechten near Bunnik, supply chain colleagues and judges questioned the finalists on leadership, strategy and processes in roundtable discussions.
The six-member jury consisted of Jack van der Veen (Professor of Supply Chain Management at Nyenrode Business University), Ilse van Koetsveld (Supply Chain Transformation Director at Wessanen), former winner Anouk Wissink (Operational Director at Koninklijke Vezet), Perry Buenen (Senior Vice President Canon Business Operations EMEA at Canon Europe), Jeroen Eijsten (Commercial Manager at Baarsma Wine Group) and Michel van Buren (Director BLMC).
