Joost van Haperen, young director wants (and must) grow VDL TBP Electronics 'significantly'
When he enters the central hall, he looks around for a moment and then walks to the reception desk. 'Good morning. My name is Joost van Haperen. I'm here for my first day at work," he reports. "Oh, hello, you're the new director!" is the receptionist's response. She calls Ton Plooy, who entered the building in Dirksland a little earlier. And he immediately comes down to personally greet his successor.
“I immediately sensed a lot of enthusiasm and curiosity.”
"Everyone realized that this was good for the future and therefore the employment of TBP."
"We don't do forced shopping."
“Now, within one group, we can intensify collaborations.”
“We want to grow significantly in the next three to five years.”
'Smooth handover at 'actually the worst moment imaginable'
This is how the first meeting between Plooy (70) and Van Haperen (35) will take place on January 4, 2021. At that time, Plooy had just finished DGA after his tbp electronics was taken over by VDL Groep just before Christmas. Who would be the new director? I didn't know that when I signed the contracts. A few days later I still got Joost's bio. Just like a photo that I showed to our employees during an afternoon session. So we knew what he looked like, but not much more. I was immediately happy that he is half my age. Because this company needed a fresh look, from a young person, without fixed habits.'
No doubt, many questions
Van Haperen, until then project management & engineering manager at VDL Steelweld, is just a little better prepared on his first day of work. “In the weeks preceding I was asked whether I was interested in the position of director of an electronics company that was likely to be taken over. This is a standard procedure at VDL: when a takeover is finalized, we want a new director. In the afternoon of December 22, I had a conversation with Willem van der Leegte, (president-director VDL Groep, ed.). No, I didn't hesitate for a second. Of course, around Christmas I gathered a lot of information about tbp, read interviews with Ton… I was pleased that tbp, like VDL, is also a family business and I already had an impression of the quality orientation. But other than that I had a lot of questions when I drove to Dirksland for the first time.”