11.10.2023

New COO and CIO for Riwal

Dutch international rental group Riwal is to appoint a chief operating officer and a chief information officer both of whom will join a new ‘Executive Management Team’ along with chief executive Pedro Torres, chief financial officer René Timmers and chief commercial officer Johan van Klinken.

The new chief operating officer is Glenn Verburg, currently Riwal country manager for the Benelux region. He joined the company controller in early 2011, having previously spent more than five years with international accounting firm Ernst & Young, starting out as an assistant accountant, becoming a senior assistant accountant before making the move to Riwal. During his time at Riwal he has been fleet controller and group fleet manager. In his new role he will work with local teams in the Riwal countries, to streamline daily operations and make the organisation more agile.

The new information officer is Bob de Leeuw, who is currently responsible for digital & IT. He will be tasked with supporting both commercial and fleet operations, helping to improve the performance of the website and customer portal MyRiwal, while also handling projects on e-commerce, digital innovation and predictive maintenance.
de Leeuw joined the company two and a half years ago, after four years with Canadian services and IT consulting group CGI where he was vice president of the Maritime & Logistics, sector. He began his career in 2004 with finance group De Lage Landen Translease moving in 2007 to Vanderlande Industries, and then on to Transfer Solutions when we progressed over 11 years to become senior consultant and technical manager. From then he worked with Thuisvester, Valid and Vodaphone before joining Damen Shipyards Group as manager of global application services, departing after four years for CGI.

Pedro Torres said: “We are putting key players in place with a strong focus. These latest appointments concern colleagues taking on new responsibilities and supporting the 14 countries we have operations in. This enables us to take full advantage of internal resources and apply a tailored approach to each country. By using the talent within our organisation and creating optimal group synergy, we stay flexible and competitive in this ever dynamic industry.”

Vertikal Comment

This looks like a combined move to set up a solid succession plan as well as create a strong mixed skills team to take the business to new levels in terms of consistency of services, management and systems throughout the group’s wide geographically spread operations. The first task might be to work out who does what between a couple of the roles.

Looks like a positive future looking move.