‘Well ma’am, that’s a nice car. How did you get that?’, she was once told when she filled up her black Porsche Cayman at a gas station. Such a silly question does not deserve a serious answer, thought Kristel Groenenboom. ‘How do I get my car? Just got it from some old rich guy.’
She can handle it now: people, or actually mostly men, who think they are canteen attendants, secretaries or golddigger is. Ever since Groenenboom took over the eponymous container company from her father Cees at the age of 23, these assumptions have become part of everyday life. Because although she had predicted it herself as a toddler, the outside world was skeptical. At a big party in honor of the takeover, she was mainly told by business partners that things would undoubtedly go wrong within a few years.
This appeared to not be the case. With Groenenboom, who just graduated cum laude as a commercial engineer, at the helm, the container company’s portfolio expanded. In addition to building and repairing containers for major customers such as energy company RWE and the Ministry of Defence, Groenenboom also started renovating silos. The company’s turnover grew under her reign, although her father would not easily compliment her on the good figures.
Kristel resembles her father in her temper and perfectionism, says her mother Marijke Groenenboom. That resulted in quite some difficult confrontations in the early days. ‘My husband is of the old school and didn’t always understand that Kristel had to do things differently.’ At the same time, Groenenboom could understand all too well the difficulty of saying goodbye to his company, she says at the radio station BNR. “It feels like a baby you have to give away.”
Either way, she was ready to take over. As a secondary school student she already wrote a paper on Chinese industry, a much-discussed subject at the kitchen table. In addition, her father had promised her a tour of China if she got the highest grade in the class. A promise he had to keep: she got a solid 9.5 for her piece of work. The drive she saw in the Chinese formed the building blocks for her later leadership. What they can do in China, we can do here. Even better, thought Groenenboom.
May I have a word with Mr. Kristel?
In addition to being an entrepreneur, the cheerful Brabant woman is also a self-proclaimed ‘foody’, art lover and Porsche fan. Together with a friend who shares her love for fast cars, she regularly goes ice racing in Lapland. They are then the only women in the entire tour group. A role that suits her as a ‘tough chick’ perfectly, says publisher Monique Bransen. She published Groenenboom’s first book in 2017, about her life as an ‘outlier’ in a predominantly masculine sector: May I have a word with Mr. Kristel? . Bransen: ‘She now jokes about the prejudices and uses it to her advantage.’
In the book, Groenenboom also writes about the misconception that everything just happened to her and about the myth that good entrepreneurs have to work a hundred hours a week. According to her surroundings, the mourner certainly works hard, but there must also be time left for a cooking course in Italy or a day of shopping in Paris. Although the telephone is always with her and she still often opens her mailbox.
Although in the early days people laughed at the high heels she wore on the business park, Groenenboom has proven that someone who likes nice clothes can also manage a container company. “She’s good to her people,” says Bransen, “and her employees now respect her, too.” But change for the sake of change, she doesn’t do that. Since she took over the company, the number of employees has barely grown. Small but brave, remains the motto of the container company.
Tips for Kaag
The container market has changed over the years. Almost two decades after her piece of work, it is no longer possible to compete with her beloved China. Groenenboom therefore decided to focus on custom work: special containers with X-ray machines for a hospital in Somalia, for example, or container homes for students. Everything they can’t do in China, we can do, thinks Groenenboom.
Nowadays, the Brabant woman mainly advocates less dependence on China, as Sigrid Kaag also knows. During a working visit to the container company last year, the then Minister for Trade was handed two A4 pages: ‘Kristel’s tips for Sigrid’. The common thread of her advice: improve trade relations within Europe.
Last week, exactly that ‘brutal’ leadership was awarded at the Bold Woman Awards, where she was named business woman of the year. An award that is equivalent to winning an Oscar for the youngest winner ever, she said in her acceptance speech. But even more important for Groenenboom, says Bransen, is that she can use the stage to get more women into technology. ‘And that she could put her team in the spotlight at the award ceremony.’
She did not pick up the prize in her beloved Porsche, but in a pink Hummer limousine. She is, after all, an Oscar-winning Container Queen.
3 x Kristel Groenenboom
Groenenboom’s multimillion-dollar company has 27 covered industrial halls and approximately 30 employees. Of these, four are women: a mechanical engineer, an HR employee, an interior designer and the director.
In recent years, Groenenboom has been actively promoting more women at the top of business and in the technical industry. An extra woman wouldn’t do any harm at her own company either: ‘But no female welders or painters ever apply.’
When she found herself with a batch of unusable open containers during the corona crisis, Groenenboom came up with the ‘container swimming pool’. For 15 to 20 thousand euros you have a converted sea container to float in.