UPDATED — Dümmen Orange Transitions Management of North American Team
At the beginning of November, Dümmen Orange announced it will be transitioning management of its North American business to its domestically grown leadership team.
According to the company, the North American team has accomplished a lot in the last few years “by successfully providing more robust solutions to their customers through an expanded product offering and becoming one of the most recognized names in the industry.”
These accomplishments were through the hard work and contributions of a team that has grown from 10 to 90 individuals in the last 5 years.
The North America Commercial team will continue to be led by Eduardo Flores, Finance will continue to be led by Frank Magnusson, and Operations will continue to be led by Kate Santos.
Kate Santos, Dümmen Orange’s operation director, told GPN, the move will help position Dümmen Orange for the 2017-2018 season. “While the customer has always been a priority, for Dümmen Orange, the 2017-2018 season is taking our customer focus to the next level. We have challenged every team in our organization to look at their activities through the lens of a customer (whether it be broker, grower or retailer) and ask themselves questions like the following: How will this benefit our customer?; How will this improve our way of working together?; and How can we continue to serve them better?”
“In parallel, we reached out to these customers, asked them these questions directly and used their responses to inform change in our behaviors and ways of working,” Santos said.
Santos said the company does not any significant changes in the coming year, “however true to one of our five company values, Evolving Excellence, we are taking a number of strides to continue to improve in supply, in service and in product innovation.”
According to Santos, the North American management team is ready for the challenge. She said the team is “capable, motivated, passionate, and working on building the best team in the industry to pave the way for floriculture innovation and advancement for the next generation.”
Perry Wismans sees this as a pivotal moment to hand over leadership to the local North American-based team, “the next generation of leadership is ready and I look forward to seeing the great things they accomplish together as a team for the organization and the industry.”
Dümmen Orange CEO Biense Visser adds, “Given the success Perry has created in North America he will be taking on a new role as global Head of Floricultural Innovation. In this capacity, he will remain a senior advisor to the Dümmen Orange North America team.”