Juri Kooyman will take over as CEO of the Kooyman Group. The Curacao, Dutch Caribbean based Hardware & Building Materials Retailer announced this on Friday, July 3rd. Juri Kooyman succeeds Herbert van der Woude, who has been the CEO of the Kooyman Group for the last 14 years.
Effective January 1st, 2021, Juri Kooyman will take over as CEO of the Kooyman Group. The Curacao, Dutch Caribbean based Hardware & Building Materials Retailer announced this on Friday, July 3rd. Juri Kooyman succeeds Herbert van der Woude, who has been the CEO of the Kooyman Group for the last 14 years.
Over the past six years Juri Kooyman has been a member of the Group’s Executive Management Team, responsible for Store Operations and Commercial Sales. He joined the company in 2006 as an Assistant Store Manager in Dakota, Aruba, after which he became the first Store Manager of the first Megastore, located in Primavera, Aruba. He will be succeeded as Senior Manager Operations by Job Laboyrie, a veteran Kooyman manager currently overseeing the completion of the Barbados store setup project.
As CEO, Juri Kooyman’s priority will be to further streamline and stabilize the Group’s performance in the aftermath of the Corona crisis. At the same time, he will focus on integrating the Barbados store into the local market and community and into the internal overall working processes. Lastly, he will oversee the efforts to re-align the Group’s “customer first” culture after more than a year of distraction due to the implementation of a new ERP system. This implementation is expected to be finished by the end of September and will form the backbone of the Group’s digital transformation strategy to prepare for future market developments and at the same time serve its markets more effectively.
"We are extremely indebted to Herbert for his commitment as our company's top executive," said Chairman Bastiaan Kooyman. “Under his leadership, Kooyman has further developed itself into a leading Caribbean hardware/building materials retailer. We are therefore pleased that he continues to use his knowledge, network and experience for the company with his accession to the Supervisory Board as per January 1st, 2021."
“Preparations for this moment have been ongoing for quite some time already. We will be officially making the switch on January 1st and I’m very much looking forward to that day," the incoming CEO said. “Kooyman is known as an ambitious, innovative and dynamic company that is very customer focused. We would like to maintain and further enhance this. With the growth of recent years and the opening of the Barbados store, we are looking to further expand our leading position in the region by continuing to pursue our existing strategy, but at the same time to also increase focus on digitalization and sustainability.”