On December 31st this year, Roger Stewart will step down as managing director of  Rijk Zwaan UK Ltd. Daily management will then be taken over by country managers Gerard van der Hut and Jayne Copeland, who will report to  Marcel Barten and John Coremans, the management team of Rijk Zwaan Nederland.

Roger Stewart joined Rijk Zwaan in 1977 and held the position of managing director since 1989. Marco van Leeuwen, commercial director of Rijk Zwaan, says Roger played an important role in the establishment and development of Rijk Zwaan UK. “Rijk Zwaan is very thankful for the good work that Roger has done and glad to announce that he will be retained in an advisory capacity until December 2012.” In the last year before his retirement, Roger will play an important role in supporting Gerard van der Hut and Jayne Copeland, who on January 1st 2012 will be appointed ‘country managers’.

Experienced successors
In the past five years, Gerard van der Hut has been working as accountmanager for Rijk Zwaan UK, which has made him very familiar with the market and customers of the company. Rijk Zwaan, therefore,  is very confident that he will be the right person to take the daily commercial lead. Jayne Copeland has a thorough background in financial matters and will be appointed controller. “With Gerard and Jayne, Rijk Zwaan is convinced that the successful work of Rijk Zwaan UK can be further extended in the coming years”, Van Leeuwen concludes.

Because the vegetable market in the Netherlands, Belgium and the UK have significant similarities, Rijk Zwaan chose to appoint one management team for these three countries. In the UK as well as in Belgium, country managers have the daily lead and report to Marcel Barten and John Coremans in the Netherlands.