The Supervisory Board of Enexis Groep has decided to appoint Rutger van der Leeuw (43) as Chief Operating Officer (COO) and Jeroen Sanders (46) as Chief Transition Officer (CTO) on 1 September 2020. As a result of this, the number of members of the Executive Board will be increased to four.
Achieving climate goals remains a major challenge for the operational side of the organisation. The COO will be responsible for all technical and customer operations. That role will be filled by Rutger van der Leeuw who has broad experience of the whole operations process at Enexis. Before becoming Director Infra at Enexis Netbeheer in 2016, Rutger held the positions of Director Customers & Market and Manager Procurement. Prior to that, Rutger held various management positions at KPN.
As CTO, Jeroen Sanders will focus on the future of the energy system and on enabling the organisation to respond quickly to rising external developments. Jeroen is currently Director ICT at Enexis Groep, a position that he has held since 2017. Before that, he was the Managing Director of Endinet, Manager Sustainability at Fudura and held various management positions at Edon and Essent.
The Supervisory Board has also announced that Maarten Blacquière (CFO) will hand over his responsibilities early 2021. He will be succeeded by Mariëlle Vogt (54) who will join the Executive Board of Enexis Groep early 2021. Mariëlle has been Director Finance at Enexis Groep for more than three years. Before that, she held the position of Financial Director at TU Delft. Mariëlle previously worked at KPN for a long time where she held various financial positions.
Maarten Blacquière: “After 8 years on the Executive Board of Enexis, it feels like the right time for me to pass on the baton to someone else. This is the start of a new era in which an expanded Executive Board will take Enexis into the next phase of the energy transition. In the coming months, I want to ensure continuity within the Executive Board and also make way for a new team. I am proud that our management team has turned out to be a breeding ground for talent, with three directors who will be taking their position on the Executive Board.” It is currently unknown what Maarten’s future role will be.
Piet Moerland, chairman of the Supervisory Board, is also delighted that these three positions on the Executive Board are to be filled by people within their own ranks: “By strengthening our leadership team, we are preparing the organisation for the transformation at hand and at the same time ensuring continuity within the organisation. We are very grateful to Maarten for his vital contribution. Together with Peter Vermaat, he has led the company with passionate commitment and has given it a new direction. Operating activities are almost 50% up on 2015 and safety awareness has improved tremendously. Enexis has the solid financial foundations required for the funding of crucial future investments in the energy network. We wish Maarten all the very best for the future and greatly appreciate the fact that there is ample opportunity for us to ensure a smooth transition over the next months.”
With effect from 1 September 2020, the Executive Board of Enexis Groep will consist of four members: a CEO (Evert den Boer), a CFO (Maarten Blacquière), a COO (Rutger van der Leeuw) and a CTO (Jeroen Sanders).
The Works Council and the Shareholders' Committee have both issued a positive recommendation on the intended appointment of Rutger, Jeroen and Mariëlle (from left to right on the image above).