Appointment of new directors Witteveen+Bos
Eveline Buter and Wouter Bijman appointed as new directors
Engineers Eveline Buter (director) and Wouter Bijman (managing director) were appointed to the board during the Annual General Meeting of Witteveen+Bos on Tuesday 27 October 2020. Karin Sluis has stepped down as managing director. Stephan van der Biezen will continue his role in the board of directors.
Reinforcement
With the appointment of Eveline Buter and Wouter Bijman, the Witteveen+Bos Board of Directors has increased from two to three members. This reinforcement provides extra scope for proactiveness, including more participation in the debate on societally relevant and knowledge-intensive themes such as the energy transition, climate adaptation, circular building and safety. The expansion also fits with the strong growth of our company in recent years, from over 900 employees when Karin Sluis was appointed in 2013 to more than 1300 today.
Karin Sluis will continue working at Witteveen+Bos, focusing on developing investment propositions in the field of energy, infrastructure and water. She will also continue to be active in the Council for the Environment and Infrastructure (Rli), the Supervisory Board of Saxion University of Applied Sciences and the NWO domain board Applied and Technical Sciences.
Wouter Bijman
Wouter Bijman (1976) studied civil engineering at TU Delft and has a background in hydraulic engineering, infrastructure and mobility, digitisation and safety. He has headed our offices in Rotterdam, Atyrau (Kazakhstan) and Dubai. Since 2018, Wouter has been business line manager of Infrastructure and Mobility. As member of the external head group Governance Code Safety in Construction and at Koninklijke NLingenieurs, his main concern is to improve safety in the construction chain. In his capacity as member of the steering committee Intelligent Infra, he also contributes to the transition of the construction sector into an economically stronger and smarter business line with more societal value. Wouter Bijman: 'As a director, I want to specially commit to increasing diversity, inclusivity and shared impact in our company. We see great potential in all the various backgrounds we have in our Witteveen+Bos family: cultural, professional and in terms of personalities. We cherish this diversity and together we want to benefit even more from it - important for both job satisfaction and interconnectedness, as well as for the quality of the projects.'
Eveline Buter
Eveline Buter (1975) studied civil engineering at TU Delft and has a background in water management, societal cost-benefit analyses and energy (transition). For five years, she was head of our office in Indonesia and has led the Product-Market-Combination (PMC) Industry and Energy since 2015. Eveline is involved in the continued development of our share participation scheme and has helped shape our policy for the promotion of diversity, inclusivity and shared impact. As a branch ambassador at Koninklijke NLingenieurs, she is also committed to speeding up the energy transition. Eveline Buter: 'In my new role, I particularly want to focus on increasing our contribution as engineering consultants to sustainability. We do that as an organisation, but above all through our projects and in collaboration with the chain. We use the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals as our guide in this. Witteveen+Bos is a nice, professional company which offers opportunities for people to develop and contribute to a better society!'
Stephan van der Biezen
Stephan van der Biezen (1970) will continue his role in the Board of Directors. He looks forward to the expansion of the board: 'This reinforcement reflects our significant global growth of recent years, creates more scope for both internal and external portfolios and enables us to present our work more visibly in society. In 2020, we made some adjustments to our organisational structure so that we can improve our approach internationally to talent development, innovation and market development. This is something we want to develop further. Other subjects like the digital transition, safety and compliance also require the board's full attention. And at a time when we are often working from home on a laptop, we still want to continue being the platform for talent development that we aim to be. In short: there's plenty to do!'