Executive Committee

Stronger and more decisive with ExCo

Since 1 January 2012 KPN has a divisional structure that is managed by the Executive Committee (ExCo), under the responsibility of the Board of Management. All the Dutch and foreign operating activities are represented on the ExCo.

The structure, which facilitates more direct and efficient control, fits in with the strategic plans and is geared to a stronger and more decisive KPN. The organization enables KPN to respond appropriately to the changing ICT market.

On the ExCo, which is chaired by the CEO, every division is led by a divisional director. The divisional directors report to the Managing Director Netherlands. In addition, the CFO for the Dutch activities has a seat on the ExCo and three corporate departments are represented on the ExCo.

Read below the biographies of Eelco Blok, Thorsten Dirks, Eric Hageman, Joost Farwerck, Godert Vinkesteijn, Jesper Eriksen, John van Vianen, Steven van Schilfgaarde, Eric Kuisch, Erik Hoving, Lia Belilos, Jasper Spanbroek, Jos Donvil and Huib Costermans.

Eelco Blok, chairman of the Board of Management and CEO

Making KPN the best service provider, with the help of the ExCo members and all the employees: this is what chairman of the Board of Management and CEO Eelco Blok (born 1957, Vlissingen) sees as his greatest challenge. “My main motivation is the desire to perform better tomorrow than today.” Blok calls himself a man for whom content is important; he is disciplined and has a sportsman’s mentality: “always wanting to win”.

Blok, who has been at the helm of KPN since April 2011, has had a long career with the company that he joined as a business analyst in 1983 when it was still known as PTT. In the years prior to that he studied business economics at the Erasmus University Rotterdam and business management at the Rotterdam School of Management. “After that I deliberately chose PTT; I was looking for a combination of technology and a dynamic environment that constantly throws up new challenges. It has been the right choice, from that day to this.”

Until he was appointed as a member of the Board of Management in 2004, Blok held managerial positions in various parts of the company. Interspersed by a break of a little over a year, he occupied the positions of chief operating officer fixed, corporate strategy & innovation officer and chief operating officer on the Board of Management. He was responsible successively for the divisions Fixed, Business Market, Wholesale & Operations, Getronics, Mobile International and iBasis. “I regard the transformation of Wholesale & Operations into a best in class division of KPN, the sharp rise in KPN’s share of the broadband market and the growth of Mobile International as my greatest achievements to date within the KPN Group.”

His ambition of becoming the best service provider means ensuring that the right choices are made and that they are put into practice at the right time and in the right way. His motto is “Don’t cling onto the past, don’t dream about the future, just concentrate on the here and now”.

Eelco Blok co-chairman of the National Cyber Security Council. In his free time he is a keen competitive yachtsman and loves travelling with his partner Annemarie Weverling, with whom he lives. They have three children.

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Thorsten Dirks, member of the Board of Management and chief executive officer KPN Mobile International

Thorsten Dirks (born 1963, Hamburg) has been a member of the Board of Management since November 2011. In that capacity he is responsible for KPN’s mobile activities abroad. “Enterprising, passionate and direct” is how he describes his predominant characteristics. His motto is “What you give is what you get”.

Dirks studied electrical engineering and communication technology at the University of Hamburg. He began his management career with Orbitel Mobile Communication (Vodafone/Ericsson), and then joined Vebacomand, finally moving to E-Plus in 1996. He held various ICT and commercial management positions before joining the Board of Management of E-Plus. He was appointed chairman of the Board of Management in 2007. “I am proud of the substantial growth in sales we have achieved since 2005 thanks to our challenger strategy,” he says reflectively.

With his experience of the challenger strategy and knowledge of the mobile activities he aims to add value to KPN’s Board of Management. “The German and Dutch approaches to the market cannot be compared with one another, but we can definitely apply parts of the challenger strategy in the Netherlands. I am convinced that there is still a lot that KPN Nederland and KPN International can learn from one another and thereby become a better service provider.”

He says that his greatest driving force is working as a team to achieve a single goal and continually discovering new ways of tackling the biggest challenges successfully.
Dirks’s hobby is photography, especially black and white. He spends a lot of his leisure time with his wife and 15 year-old son.

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Eric Hageman, Chief Financial Officer

Eric Hageman was appointed Chief Financial Officer of KPN on 3 July 2012. He has held the post of interim CFO, along with Steven van Schilfgaarde, since January 2012. In addition, Hageman (42) was CEO at KPN Group Belgium. He describes himself as a hard worker with an eye for detail and as someone who is result-oriented. “I want to make the most of every situation and have the will to win.”

Hageman studied business economics at the University of Maastricht and business administration at the London Business School. He started his working career in the English capital, where he took on various management positions with ABN AMRO and Deutsche Bank.

In 2005 he joined KPN, starting as head of Investor Relations. Additionally, he became head of the Mergers & Acquisitions department in 2007. In 2008 he was appointed CFO of the Mobile International division, a position he held until the middle of 2011. As project manager, Hageman also made a key contribution to developing the 2011-2015 Strategy. “Our strategy is clear. We now have to focus on implementing the plans and creating value for our stakeholders.”

Hageman enjoys golf, skiing and soccer, and loves good food and fine wine. Traveling with his 'four girls' – his Spanish wife and three daughters – is another of his pleasures.

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Joost Farwerck, member of the Board of Management and Managing Director The Netherlands

Joost Farwerck (born 1965, Hilversum), has been appointed Member of the Board of KPN on 10 April 2013. He has been Managing Director The Netherlands since 15 February 2012 and is responsible for all of KPN’s activities in The Netherlands. His main driving forces are change and improvement. “KPN gives you every opportunity to do things differently”, he says.

Farwerck studied law at the University of Amsterdam and followed a variety of studies and courses at institutions such as the International Institute for Management Development. He joined KPN in 1994 as legal counsel. He then became an account manager and subsequently held various senior management positions. For instance, he managed the Wholesale division, was head of Network Operations in the Netherlands and managed the Consumer Residential division and as of 2012 became Managing Director The Netherlands. He regards the development of the Wholesale strategy and the improvements of KPN’s position in the broadband and TV market as being among the highlights of his career.

As member of KPN’s Board Farwerck maintains his responsibilities for all KPN’s activities in the Netherlands. He regards KPN in the Netherlands as the Integrated Access Provider for consumers and business customers. The integration of services (fixed and mobile) is one of his major objectives. He wants to strengthen KPN’s market position and transform KPN into an uncomplicated and customer-friendly service provider. He also wants to make a difference to Dutch society, utilizing themes such as The New Way of Working, The Future of Healthcare, Energy efficient and Security & Privacy. “KPN is a company that has responsibilities towards its employees, its shareholders and society as a whole”.

Farwerck is a member of the Executive Committee of VNO NCW and a member of the Board of ICT-Office. He is married and is the father of three children. He enjoys cycling and tennis, listening to music (Spotify!) and reading Dutch and English literature.

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Godert Vinkesteijn, CFO Netherlands

Godert Vinkesteijn (born 1966, The Hague) is a real KPN-man. He boasts more than 20 years of experience with KPN in a wide variety of positions. He describes himself as enthusiastic, tenacious and demanding, and has boundless energy.

Vinkesteijn studied at the University of Amsterdam (actuarial sciences) and took a postgraduate controller course at the VU University Amsterdam. He also did various management study courses abroad, including London and Lausanne.

In 1991 he started as controller at the former PTT and then worked in a variety of management posts – in the financial field as well as in IT and distribution marketing. Among his achievements is the key contribution he made to the preparations for the takeover of Telfort. From 2007 to 2011 Vinkesteijn was CFO at KPN subsidiary E-Plus in Germany, a period of which he is very proud. He helped to build up the challenger strategy, which engendered profitable growth for KPN. He was also closely involved in the participation in the frequency auction in Germany.

Teamwork is paramount in everything that Vinkesteijn does. He is motivated by enthusing colleagues and getting them moving. “I have the will to win and always want to get the best out of my team. Nobody is perfect, but a team can be.”

Customer focus is, according to Vinkesteijn, the pivotal issue in his ambition of making KPN the best service provider, with the quality of the network as the basis. He describes KPN as a fine, dynamic company that has a central position in society. He wants to further improve sustainability at KPN in the years ahead. “You have to have the desire to perform better every day.”

In his spare time Vinkesteijn is a member of the Supervisory Board of the hockey club Klein Zwitserland and is on the Advisory Board of the firm Ideal Projects. He is an ardent hockey player, diver and runner. He loves making adventurous trips abroad with his wife and two children.

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Jesper Theill Eriksen, Director Consumer Residential and Mobile

Jesper Eriksen (born Copenhagen, 1968) has been at the helm of the Consumer Residential since 1 May 2012. As of November 2012 he fulfills the same position for the division Consumer Mobile. He describes himself as ‘open, curious and a hard worker’.

Having graduated in law from the University of Copenhagen, Jesper decided to pursue a career in telecommunications. His first job was in 1996 with the Danish telecom company TDC, where he held various management positions. After eight years, he continued his career as CEO of the mobile provider Bite in Lithuania and Latvia. Two years later he went to Sunrise in Switzerland, again as CEO, returning to TDC after one year. Before moving to KPN in 2012, Eriksen was responsible for the consumer division of TDC.

He is proud of the time he spent at TDC Consumer “We managed to defend or grow market shares in all products and at the same time grow our Ebitda”. Eriksen is not a career planner. “I concentrate on the here and now rather than on the future.”

KPN is not an unknown quantity to him. “I have been following the company for years, I know its ambition and I believe I can contribute towards the realization of that ambition. You have to set clear targets and show your staff how much fun it is to improve products and services.” He is convinced that this more than anything influences customer satisfaction. “You need enthusiastic employees in order to achieve success.”

In his spare time Eriksen loves to cook. He plays the piano and enjoys running and skiing. He is married and has two daughters.

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John van Vianen, director Business Market

“Result-focused, creative, energetic and externally oriented”. This is how John van Vianen (born 1969, Maassluis) describes himself. The director Business Market has 18 years of experience in the telecommunications and ICT sector, in which he has occupied various management positions. Alongside his function within Business Market he is also chairman of the Supervisory Board of KPN subsidiary iBasis.

Van Vianen studied business economics at the University of Tilburg, subsequently completing a Master of Business Telecommunications at the Delft University of Technology. Prior to his current position he was CEO of iBasis in the USA, where he achieved a substantial improvement in sales and growth. Before that Van Vianen was managing director of Information & Communication Solutions at Getronics and a member of the Getronics Executive Committee.

Between 1999 and 2008 he held various management positions at KPN and KPN subsidiaries. For example, he was director of KPN Network Services. He was also senior vice president of KPN ICT Services and worked in various senior management positions at KPNQwest, among them vice president Mergers & Acquisitions.

He calls himself a no-nonsense manager. “My driving force is achieving maximum result with national and international high-performance teams. I am constantly on the lookout for improvements and employees must have room to develop their capabilities.” He also feels that this approach is central to the aim of Business Market division to become the best service provider.

Van Vianen represents KPN on the Supervisory Board of various companies and is a board member of the KPN Mooiste Contact Fonds. He has a partner and two children. He enjoys travel, sports, reading and gastronomy.

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Steven van Schilfgaarde, Director Corporate Market

Steven van Schilfgaarde (born 1964, Linschoten) can call on more than two decades of experience with KPN and Getronics. Since May 2012 he has been director of KPN Corporate Market, the former Getronics, of which he used to be CEO. Along with Eric Hageman he was interim CFO of KPN from January to September 2012.

Having studied business economics at Erasmus University Rotterdam and taken a postgraduate controller course at the VU University Amsterdam, Van Schilfgaarde has a long history with KPN, which he joined in 1990. Since then he has held various financial management posts and has specialized in IT, procurement, offshoring and outsourcing.

He describes himself as a focused and passionate manager with a positive attitude who is always keen to find new opportunities and possibilities. “When it comes to fundamental changes, I’m your man.” Examples of this are his contribution to the integration of Getronics into KPN and offshoring IT-related work to India, he says.

“KPN plays a crucial role in the Netherlands; it is one of the biggest customer-oriented companies and helps to determine the success of this country. That’s why working for KPN has always been interesting.” Van Schilfgaarde wants to get the company moving in the right direction and to allow employees to blossom. “As far as I’m concerned, it’s very beneficial that I am known to our customers, something that is possible at only a few companies.”

He regards successfully completing the Getronics transition as a key short-term ambition. He is enthusiastic about the responsibility he bears for ‘his’ 8000 staff. “I feel a great social commitment and want to create a good future for them.”

In addition to the above-mentioned duties Van Schilfgaarde is a member of the Board of Directors of the KPN Pension Fund and a member of the Supervisory Board of SNT Germany. He is the father of three young children and enjoys playing sport, especially squash and tennis.

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Eric Kuisch, director NetCo

Director NetCo since February 2012, Eric Kuisch (born 1965, Amsterdam) describes himself as an optimist, puts changes into practice and “likes doing things that haven’t yet been done”. His motto is “goals are dreams with a deadline”.

Major transitions have formed a pattern in Kuisch’s career with KPN, having started work in 1991 at KPN Research. Before that he studied mathematics at the VU University Amsterdam. Among other things, Kuisch was program director at KPN Mobile, where he was responsible for launching KPN’s UMTS network in the Netherlands. In the years that followed he was director IT Operations and then worked for more than two years in the Business Market division. Before becoming director NetCo he was general manager of Network Services for two and a half years.

“I’m attracted by the versatility of the company and its businesslike but human culture,” he says of KPN. “Easy days don’t exist here. That’s what makes working for KPN so interesting and challenging. KPN is one of the most influential companies in the Netherlands. KPN makes a difference.” He looks back with pride at the crisis period around 2001 during which he contributed towards the necessary radical reorganizations, without compromising on the services provided.

He aims to put his experiences in the Business Market division and elsewhere to good use in NetCo – the amalgamation of ITNL and Wholesale & Operations – so as to ensure that KPN becomes a better service provider. “We have to become more customer-oriented; it needs to be in our genes.”
He also sees continuing to offer the best network in the Netherlands as a major challenge. And although his work for KPN is far from over, he would love to try his luck in Asia one day, in a different environment and a different culture.

Besides his KPN work, Kuisch is chairman of the national schools association De Passie and a board member of Alpha, an international ecclesiastical organization. His hobbies are golf and cooking.

Eric is married and has three sporty teen children. A son and two daughters.

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Erik Hoving Chief Strategy, Innovation & Technology Officer KPN Group

Erik Hoving (born 1963, Eindhoven) describes KPN as “a great Dutch company in a very relevant industry in which a tremendous amount is going to happen in the years ahead”. He is a go-getter, is creative and determined, and has a real winner’s mentality.

He studied at the universities of Delft and Rotterdam, and began his career at the end of the 1980s at AT&T NSI, moving three years later to consultancy firm Arthur D. Little, where he worked for ten years. Hoving then pursued his career at Monitor Group and subsequently became CEO of telecom company Zenitel in Brussels. In 2008 he moved to KPN as Chief Technology Officer and CEO NetCo at KPN Mobile International.

At KPN he looks back with pride at his contribution to the partnership with the Chinese company ZTE and the positive results of Mobile International in the last few years. He says that his finest moment was realization of the initial plan for the mobile challenger in 2002 in Belgium, when he was still only a consultant for KPN.

Hoving regards the new KPN 2011-2015 strategy as an opportunity for KPN to get closer to society. “We ought to be less technocratic and approach the market with more emotion. We need to be more realistic in our decision-making.” With his new department he wants to ensure that KPN focuses more on the long term in the years to come. “We mustn’t just look at the short term: first find the right options and then make a choice. We need to enhance our relevance for our customers and for society.” If you want to choose, you need options, is his motto.

Alongside his work with KPN Hoving was a member of the board of Stichting Lezen en Schrijven, which he co-founded. He is also a member of the board of Stichting Toekomst der Techniek.

Hoving is married and has four children, loves sport, and good food and wine.

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Lia Belilos, Chief Human Resources Officer

Lia Belilos (born 1962, Lisse) has been Chief HR Officer of KPN Group since July 2011. She describes herself as energetic, creative and demanding, and is always on the lookout for new ways of developing her talent. Her motto is “Draw energy from what you do, and if you can’t, move on”.

Before her move to KPN she worked at Shell for 25 years at home and abroad, occupying a variety of HR posts. Her last position was that of vice president HR for BeNeFrux. Belilos studied at the universities of Reading (European studies) and Rotterdam (social sciences).

HR specialist Belilos calls herself a team player and can call on wide knowledge and experience in all areas of HR. Together with her team she wants to further improve the professional, effective and efficient HR environment and to enhance the HR function in the KPN Group. “What motivates me is ensuring that my colleagues and I perform to the best of our ability; that’s what energizes me.” She says that “putting yourself in the other person’s shoes” is one of the main ways in which HR can help towards achieving KPN’s ambition of becoming the best service provider.

As well as Chief HR Officer, Belilos is chairperson of the HR Proffie award jury and holds four board positions, including at the Algemene Bestuursdienst, Opportunity in Bedrijf and the Commissie Voorbereiding Arbeidsvoorwaardenbeleid at VNO-NCW.

In her free time she loves reading, and to keep herself in good physical condition she is a regular visitor to the gym. Lia Belilos is married and has two children.

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Jasper Spanbroek, Chief Legal Offficer

Jasper Spanbroek (born 1975), Chief Legal Officer, has been a member of the ExCo and Company Secretary since 1 February 2013 . He describes himself as enthusiastic, honest and involved, devoting himself “heart and soul” to KPN.

Spanbroek studied law at the University of Nijmegen, graduating in 1998. Postdoctoral training in European Business Law followed immediately and he began his career with KPN in 1999 as a company lawyer. In 2004, he became secretary of the Board of Management, a position he filled until 2007. That was the year in which he was appointed Group Compliance Officer. From then until 2013, he was General Counsel for three different divisions of the company.

‘KPN is a fantastic company and the market in which we operate offers lots of opportunities. That’s why in all my years with KPN I have never for a single moment been bored.’ Given the speed at which things are developing, he regards it as a great challenge to stay in the vanguard, even in the legal domain. ‘It motivates me to achieve concrete results, be it for customers, employees or shareholders.’

Alongside his regular functions at KPN, he is a member of the Aufsichtsrat (Supervisory Board) of E-Plus. Outside KPN he is an adviser to the family business De Spelerij. Spanbroek is married and has three young children.


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Jos Donvil, CEO KPN Group Belgium

Since July 2012, Jos Donvil has been a member of the ExCo as chief executive officer (CEO) of KPN Group Belgium (BASE). He carried out this function on an interim basis from January to June 2012. Donvil, who is 53 and was born in Sint-Agatha-Berchem, Belgium, has a drive for results and calls himself a genuine team player. His motto is “Never give up”.

Having studied economics at the Catholic University of Leuven, Donvil began his working career in 1983 at Mars, where he occupied various sales and marketing positions in Belgium and the Netherlands, including marketing director Benelux. In 1995 he moved to Kraft Foods, where he worked until 2006. His last position there was global customers director. After a short period with Unilin-Quickstep he came to KPN Group Belgium in 2007. Before his appointment as (interim) CEO he was commercial officer and chief operating officer.

“KPN, a top company with a bright future, has given me the chance to continue my development and to further enhance the success story of KPN in Belgium.” Donvil regards his contribution to the challenger strategy, which enabled BASE to become a major player in the Belgian mobile market with a consistent growth, as a personal success. He has special praise for the high level of commitment among the staff of KPN’s Belgian arm.

He sums up his personal career plan as “First of all complete my current task to perfection; the next step will then follow naturally”. In his leisure time Donvil can regularly be found on his racing bike or his mountain bike and he is closely involved with a local football club. He also enjoys reading.

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Huib Costermans,
Chief Financial Officer E-Plus

Huib Costermans (born 1967, Eindhoven) describes himself as focused, ambitious and optimistic. His motto is “If everything seems under control, you're just not going fast enough”, so he enjoys taking on new challenges.

Costermans studied business economics at the University of Rotterdam and took his master’s degree at the TIAS Business School (Master in Finance). He started his career in finance at Organon in 1992. Subsequently he occupied a variety of positions with the pharmaceutical company in the Netherlands, France and the USA. He moved to KPN in 2008, getting to know the company better as CFO of what was then the division known as Wholesale & Operations. In 2011 he relocated to Germany, where he has since been CFO of KPN subsidiary E-Plus. He combines this position with his responsibilities as CFO of KPN Mobile International.

For Costermans, KPN is a great company because it plays an essential, progressive role in the digitization of society. “It is not only technology that is changing rapidly, but also customer behavior in particular. It’s a wonderful challenge to work as a team to turn new technologies into customer-friendly products so we can capture customer loyalty.”

Costermans is married, has three sons and enjoys life with his family in Germany. In his leisure time he plays golf, sails, plays tennis and loves skiing.