Joost Koning

Location	Van Leeuwen Netherlands
Position	Manager Marketing en Business Development
At Van Leeuwen since	2020
Age	30

‘I am proud to be working at Van Leeuwen,’ says Joost Koning, Manager Marketing and Business Development at Van Leeuwen Netherlands. ‘I am focused on marketing, business development and managing improvement projects. It is a varied position in which I am able to effectively deploy my strategic and conceptual skills to create the maximum possible added value for our customers.’

Joost Koning has worked at Van Leeuwen since 2020. He provides the Dutch sales teams with information about developments on the international steel market and customer analyses, among other things, so that the teams can make the best business decisions. In addition, in consultation with colleagues, he translates the Van Leeuwen strategy into concrete initiatives and improvement projects.

Digitalization

Digitalization also is a high priority for him, and his most important goal in this respect is to achieve efficiency and convenience for customers. For example, in 2021 multiple new Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) connections were established with various customers. ‘The digital exchange of data with our customers and suppliers helps us improve our service delivery,’ says Joost. ‘It also saves our customers time and money, reduces the risk of errors and increases chain reliability.’ In addition, internal processes are being digitalized in order to realize efficiency gains and increase quality. An example of this is the registration of material certificates, which will be reconfigured this year using intelligent software.

Market Innovation Circles

Joost Koning and his colleagues are constantly giving thought to how they can make even better use of all the knowledge available within Van Leeuwen in order to even better serve customers. Market Innovation Circles were created last year for this reason. Each Market Innovation Circle consists of a team of commercial market experts from different European branches in our company. Joost: ‘I lead a team of eight European colleagues that focuses on the Civil Engineering & Construction market segment. The steel and shipbuilding segments, among others, form part of this.’

The fact that colleagues from different countries share their knowledge in the Market Innovation Circle, means that even more customers can benefit from our experience in this segment. For example, knowledge about pipe and tube applications in the shipbuilding sector in the Netherlands is being shared, which enables European colleagues to even better serve their customers.

Family business

‘The focus on continuity, the customer-orientation and the tremendous diversity of markets are what typifies Van Leeuwen for me. In addition, Van Leeuwen continues to be a real family business that for almost one hundred years has proven itself to be capable of providing successful solutions and creating added value for its customers,’ says Joost.