New president for Europe

The Board of Directors of Yokogawa Electric Corporation resolved in a meeting on the 19th February to appoint Herman van den Berg to the position of President of Yokogawa Europe B.V.

Herman van den Berg succeeds Harry Hauptmeijer, who has been Yokogawa Europe’s president since 2002 and will continue as director until the 1st October 2013 to support the transition. Yokogawa Europe B.V. has developed to a growing, resilient and financially healthy company with a strong focus on customers and delivering its promise. It has a solid base to further expand business in its Test & Measurement and Industrial Automation activities in the future.
In fiscal years 2009 and 2010, Yokogawa modified its business structure and sought to make the Yokogawa Group’s operations more efficient. Based on the success of these structural reforms, Yokogawa announced the Evolution 2015 mid-term business plan in November 2011 with the aim of growing its business. Now that the company has successfully completed its first full year under the Evolution 2015 plan, the decision has been made to reorganise the management team and set the stage for the continued implementation of this growth plan.

Mr. van den Berg was born in 1958, and started his engineering career in a uranium enrichment facility before moving to an offshore platform and refinery engineering team with a project company. He became involved in global projects and eventually became the global electrical, control and instrumentation manager for the company.

He joined Yokogawa in 2005 as Managing Director for Yokogawa South Africa, and moved in 2011 to Yokogawa’s European headquarters in Amersfoort, the Netherlands, as Vice President for delivery and service with the Industrial Automation Division.

Herman van den Berg strongly believes that the secret of success in the automation sector is to get to know the customers’ businesses and then use this knowledge to drive new innovations as well as partnering with the customers to realise mutual benefit. “To be close to the customer, feeling their pulse, seeing their difficulties, living with them through their concerns and seeing how they attempt to address them are crucial factors in getting close to what is important for them and earn the right to share their benefits”, he says. “In addition, Yokogawa’s pioneering spirit, appetite for quality and appreciation for a sustainable society provide the attributes that our customers need to make them successful.”

For any organisation to perform optimally Herman van den Berg believes that it is essential for each employee to understand how his or her value adds to the company and that they are respected and appreciated by all other employees,