After 22 years at ABN AMRO Bank and several years at NIBC, alumnus Jeroen Drost transferred to SHV. SHV is the Netherlands’ second biggest family company, situated in Utrecht. In an interview with Elsevier, Jeroen Drost tells about the company and his work there.
SHV was founded 124 years ago by the family Fentener van Vlissingen. It started out with seven families who traded in coal, that united into one company, the Steenkolen Handels Vereeniging. Nowadays, SHV is a family-owned, decentralised company active in different industries through its seven companies, all long-term investments: SHV Energy, Makro, Mammoet, ERIKS, Nutreco, ONE-Dyas and NPM Capital. SHV employs more than 55,000 people and is present in 58 countries.
Although still a family company, SHV has been led by people outside of the family for the past twenty years. Since 2016, that person is Jeroen Drost. Jeroen studied Economics and Business Economics at Erasmus School of Economics until 1986. In his interview with Elsevier, he talks about the company’s philosophy, the Corona crisis, and the seven companies that make up SHV.
Drost mentions that decentralised control is deeply rooted in the culture of SHV. “We do not have the illusion that we can manage seven large companies from Utrecht.”. This comes with a great deal of trust. There is one condition for that trust: bad news must be reported ASAP to Utrecht. As Drost says, “Making mistakes is okay, but not sharing bad news – that is a problem. (…) Good news is also welcome, but that can be reported tomorrow”.
Read the full interview here.
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Jeroen Drost graduated from Erasmus School of Economics in 1986.
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