Well, there’s always been 2 constants in my life: music and water. I have been singing and playing guitar in rock bands, one of them called ‘Gustav’, named after the painter Gustav Klimt. But it is my lifelong fascination for water that explains how I ended up with Aquafin.
And it actually is a fun story, because it all started with two little goldfishes in a shiny plastic bag that I got on a fair as a 5-year-old. Ever since, I have been really attracted and triggered by fishes and water life.
As a young boy, I put fish tanks all
over the house and dug a pond in the garden. Later on, I went studying
chemistry ending up doing a PhD on micropollutants in sea water, fresh water
and plankton.
2.What
is Aquafin and what impact does it make in society?
Aquafin is the company that is responsible for the treatment of the residential wastewater in Flanders, the Dutch speaking part of Belgium. It operates over 300 wastewater treatment plants. Yet, we are still investing in the expansion of the sewage infrastructure.
Because even in a prosperous region like Flanders, still 15% of the households is to be connected to the sewage system. All these efforts of our 1200 employees should lead to clean watercourses for our future generations, that is our mission.
Besides that, we are more and more focusing on energy recovery and nutrients recovery from wastewater. Also the reuse of treated wastewater is being developed as well as the design of stormwater concepts for municipalities. Because in Flanders, we are indeed experiencing drought as well as flooding due to climate change.
3.How
did you rise in your career? Were you always ambitious?
Guess I was always ambitious in a sense of stretching for the best and taking full responsibility for the things that I did. It feels like if the career steps that I made in several companies came as a consequence of that.
Luckily, I have
always been working with companies, including Aquafin and BASF, that were
putting people first and that were stimulating and valuing teamwork and
collegiality. Probably, I would not have flourished in a highly competitive
environment.
4.What
work do you think still needs to be done in waste water management?
A lot of opportunities are knocking on our door. There is an enormous potential in digitalization such as big data analysis, improved control systems and even artificial intelligence in waste water treatment plants.
Coming from the
chemical industry, I experience the water sector as relatively conservative and
risk averse. Several reasons for that, including the long life cycle of the
technological processes that we apply and a quite dominant ‘precautionary
principle’. Therefore, I feel like the sector could gain a lot from, for
instance, collaboration with innovative and entrepreneurial start-ups.
5.What
does your typical day looks like?
It’s probably cliché, but every day is different. The day might start, just like today, with an interview for a business website, whereas yesterday, I participated in an debate at an international water conference in The Netherlands. It rarely is the same.
I would say that 50 % of my attention and time goes to external stakeholders and partners. The other 50 % is focused internally, with a special interest in the human aspect of our company.
Guess that, almost daily, I’m in contact with the HR-department, for example to hear about the vacancies and hires. But also the safety of our employees and our contractors is always top of mind.
And once a month, I’m taking a ‘field trip’,
for instance to one of our waste water treatment plants, talking to our
operators and every time again learning from them.
6.Which
is your favorite book and why?
I do read a lot of newspapers and trade magazines, but there is few time left to read literature, unfortunately. Anyhow, I love, for example, Gabriel García Márquez and during my summer vacation, I read “Of love and other demons”. His writing style swings you between hard realism and very surreal scenes, in a very subtle way, sometimes without really being aware of that.
7.What
do you have to say to our readers, who are aspiring CEO’s?
Create a strong team and take care of it. As we are dealing with global issues such as Covid and climate change, it is a perplexing time for all of us. So keep in close touch with your people. They’ll appreciate and you’ll gain energy from it yourself.
Interviewed by - Krishaa Radhakrishnan
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