VAN HERWAARDEN Elias

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Elias van Herwaarden was born in the Netherlands but has spent most of his life abroad. As a child he lived in France, Germany, Spain and the USA. He graduated with an MSc from Twente University of Technology.

Elias has nearly 20 years’ experience in corporate real estate, business strategy, economic development and supply-chain management and has advised nearly 300 companies during this period, setting up and restructuring operations in over 37 countries worldwide. He has extensive experience of the consumer goods, chemical, financial services, pharmaceuticals, automotive, electronics, health care and not-for-profit industries and has conducted deployment projects for plants, headquarters and back offices, distribution centres, R&D facilities, customer service and shared service centres.

His professional career started in Brazil where he advised local automotive companies on export and international marketing. Returning to Europe, he worked as an expert on Industrial Cooperation for the European Commission’s Latin America Division. He subsequently joined Price Waterhouse to specialise in international business deployment and economic development. In this capacity he contributed to the EU-Poland accession negotiations as automotive location expert, directed site selection work on Toyota’s Valenciennes plant, conceived the Barcelona Logistics Activities Zone, closed European manufacturing operations for pharmaceutical and motor companies, and conducted over 200 other business deployment projects in Latin America, (Eastern) Europe and the United States. In 1998, he became Vice-Consul of the Netherlands in Chicago to direct the Midwest operations of the Netherlands Foreign Investment Agency.

Corporate deployment and economic development are still the main themes of his work today as he advises business and public authorities as leader of Deloitte’s Global Deployment and Expansion Services Group in Europe. He has spoken and facilitated seminars on manufacturing, customer service locations, global location strategy, outsourcing, Central Europe and future trends, and recently co-authored a top-selling book on Outsourcing for the German market.  He speaks fluent English, Dutch, French and German.

Proposed Themes

-  Business deployment in the wider EU

-  Europe’s Maquiladora sites

-  Russia - the market, the manufacturing base

-  Off-shoring to Central Europe, India and beyond

-  Shared services centres

-  The pro’s and con’s of outsourcing

-  Investment promotion and economic development

-  Corporate Real Estate: capitalising on an undervalued asset

-  Corporate decision-making: art, craft or samba?