The Worldwide Association of Female Professionals Recognizes Annemiek Gouwens
Annemiek Gouwens is the HR Director of Danone Trading BV in the Netherlands, which serves as Headquarter for two of Danone’s four global business lines: Early Life Nutrition and Medical Nutrition. Danone is a French food-products corporation, present in over 130 markets and generated sales of €22.4 billion in 2015. Danone is dedicated to bring health through food to as many people as possible. To achieve this it has an extensive portfolio of brands, corresponding to the specific needs of each generation and to the various countries where the group is present.
After earning a Master’s degree in Human Resource Management at the University of Tilburg (Netherlands) followed by a Master’s in European Social Policy at the University of Tilburg (NL)/Bath (UK)/Ljubljana (Slovenia) & St Patrick’s College (Ireland), Annemiek launched her career in the Health Sector where she established herself strongly as HR business partner & HR team lead and also had the opportunity to take on responsibility as head a.i. of the Cytogenetic department.
She then joined Shell where she worked as HR manager for the downstream part of the business (European Commercial organization for Chemicals and Global Technology Services) and developed her career further via (internal) consultancy, employee engagement & policy into the upstream business of Shell (New Business Development globally).
Over the 20 years of her career Annemiek has successfully led complex change, effectively contributed to development of senior leaders through (executive) coaching and talent management interventions with a strong focus on diversity & inclusion, staff engagement & empowerment and has delivered on a number of key topics in compensation & benefits. Given her focus on business success, Annemiek enjoys working with other functions like marketing, operations and finance and has shown to be effective in bringing together a variety of key stakeholders on business challenges. She is a strategic thinker with a pragmatic approach when it comes to implementation. Annemiek has a strong presence among the leadership teams is part of, taking clear stands and walk the talk not only on HR matters but also on other business topics like safety, quality and operational excellence. Corporate communication has always been a topic of interest and she is currently strengthening her knowledge and skills in this area.
Annemiek resides in Leiden, Netherlands and speaks fluent English and Dutch. Outside of her work endeavors she enjoys sports in particular hiking and cycling, reading (member of an international bookclub), going to the theater and spending time with family and friends over a good dinner.
Worldwide Association of Female Professionals Member Annemiek Gouwens can be found on the Association Directory, where she is looking forward to networking with you.