Supermarket group Jumbo will continue without a board of directors in the future. The company wants a “simpler and flatter” organization and is therefore merging the company top, CEO Frits van Eerd announced in a press statement on Thursday. The four members who are still on the board will be divided between the management – currently the layer just below the highest top – and the supervisory board.
The simplified company top should make it easier to “effectively implement the strategy,” explains Van Eerd in the statement. In the new situation, he himself will remain the top boss at the supermarket chain: instead of top man, he will take on the role of general manager. Operational CEO Cees van Vliet will also join the new, seven-person board, which will start at the end of next month.
It means that the grandson of founder Frits van Eerd senior will again be “a little more in the middle of the company”, he explained. in conversation with trade magazine Distrifood from† The current CEO (54) will soon work closely with the management that has to implement the plans. In recent years, there was still a layer in between and directors reported to the other directors, who in turn reported to Van Eerd.
Through acquisitions, Jumbo grew to number two after market leader Albert Heijn
The other two members of the current board are becoming more distant from the supermarket chain (9.9 billion euros in turnover, 100,000 employees). These are Colette Cloosterman-van Eerd, Frits’ older sister and who is still responsible for the Jumbo formula, and financial CEO Ton van Veen. From the end of March they will no longer be involved in day-to-day management and will assume the role of supervisor.
That decision by Van Veen (52) and Cloosterman-Van Eerd (55) stems from ‘personal ambitions’, says CEO Frits van Eerd. Distrifood† Van Van Veen, for example, states in an explanation that because of his switch he has „more time [kan] spend on other matters”, such as his supervisory directorships at department store chain HEMA, cosmetics chain Rituals and football club PSV.
Delegated tasks
The musical chairs at the top of the company is accompanied by a new strategy for the coming years, which Jumbo also presented to the outside world on Thursday. This course is based on five pillars: in addition to safeguarding the Seven Certainties, the core values in which the customer is central, it includes investing in ‘further quality improvement’, strengthening the organization and putting more emphasis on healthier and more sustainable products.
The last pillar is expanding the ‘omnichannel approach’: serving the customer through as many interconnected physical and digital points of sale as possible. The recently announced collaboration with the German flash delivery service Gorillas, which will be expanded in the course of the year, is also part of this.
Although Cloosterman-Van Eerd and Van Veen will no longer be involved in day-to-day management in a month’s time, their future role is broader than that of the average supervisory director. Both will be given “delegated responsibilities.” For example, Cloosterman-Van Eerd will delve into sustainability and ‘the store of the future’, two themes in line with her current position. “We want to rethink everything,” said CEO Frits van Eerd in Distrifood† “If necessary, we will send Colette all over the world for inspiration.”
Also read the profile: If Ton van Veen doesn’t want it, the Van Eerd family won’t do it
In addition to his supervisory duties, Van Veen will continue to focus on mergers and acquisitions and the ‘future financing strategy’. These are also themes in which he has meant a lot to the company in the past. In a profile that NRC At the end of 2020, colleagues, former colleagues and directors described Van Veen as a deft negotiator who played an important role in the many major acquisitions of the past fifteen years. As a result of these purchases, Jumbo grew from a regional supermarket chain to the number two in the Netherlands, after market leader Albert Heijn.
Confidant
The departing financial chief also has another role within Jumbo: that of a risk-conscious calculator, who can temper the great ambition of the entrepreneurial family and protect them from making mistakes. Such a role as a confidant is rare in family businesses, colleagues and outsiders said earlier in NRC. Not every family dares to trust an outsider like that.
With the new structure, this countervailing power will not disappear, but Van Veen can exert less direct influence. Yet he will also receive a prominent place on the supervisory board, as vice-chairman behind president Karel van Eerd, the man who started the Jumbo formula. Van Veen’s financial tasks at Jumbo will be taken over by Peter van Erp, who is currently financial director.
While Van Veen is now taking a step back at Jumbo, his role at other companies of the Van Eerd family will not change. He remains the family’s most important advisor at Mississippi Ventures, their investment company with which they partly acquired the HEMA retail chain at the end of 2020.