BluePrint Automation BV announces new Co-Leadership role

After more than twelve successful years, André Verkleij will be stepping down as General Manager of BluePrint Automation BV in The Netherlands. Starting July 1, 2024, Elbert Griffioen and Kees Nijenhuis will be promoted within the company to assume André Verkleij’s role in a Co-Leadership capacity. Concurrently, André will transition to a position on the supervisory board.

“I am very proud of everything we achieved in the past twelve and half years,” said André Verkleij. “For personal reasons I had to make the difficult decision to step down. However, I am confident that under Elbert and Kees’ leadership, we will continue the impressive development and growth of our company”.

Elbert Griffioen started at BluePrint Automation (BPA) as a Field Service Engineer in 2001, rejoining in 2013 as Service Manager and advancing to Technical Director in 2020. Kees Nijenhuis, with previous experience in the graphical equipment industry as Manager of Operations (NL) and Vice President (US), joined BPA in 2018 and currently serves as Operations & Service Director. In their new roles as Co-General Managers, Elbert will oversee Sales and the Technical Departments, while Kees will manage Operations, Service, and HR.

“We all regret the fact that André has sadly decided to step down. BPA, with all its people, is very grateful for Andre’s leadership, dedication, and relentless drive through all these years to make our company a great place to work, with our customers always at the center of what we do,” said BPA’s global CEO, Gijsbert Dezaire. “We are of course extremely happy that we can retain André and all his expertise by having him accept the position of supervisory board member going forward”.

“André has been planning this leadership change carefully and has done a great job investing in the development and growth of his leadership team and as a consequence, his succession planning. We are delighted that, with the promotion of Kees and Elbert, we reassure ourselves of a smooth leadership transition, and a continuation of BPA’s entrepreneurial culture and its values as a family owned company”.

BPA BV is part of the family-owned BPA Group, consisting of BPA Inc., focusing on the North- and South-American markets, and BPA BV serving the rest of the world. According to Gijsbert Dezaire, it is the “BluePrint difference” that sets BPA apart in the marketplace. “This reflects BPA’s dedication to our deep and long term partnerships, in which we always will find a customized solution and deliver an excellent service, whatever the challenge is.  Through continuous investments in people, culture and technology, BPA is committed to exceeding customers‘ expectations and to earn it every day again to be the partner of choice in secondary packaging automation”.

For more information, please visit: https://blueprintautomation.com/en/news