Five years into its award-winning integration journey and Edelman Amsterdam is to bolster its world-class corporate communications capabilities with the appointment of Ilse van Hartevelt as its first Managing Director, Corporate among a series of high-profile appointments and promotions this year.
With a successful track record in implementing full breadth international communications strategies, employee engagement and change programs across multiple sectors, Ilse comes on board in a year when the 2021 Edelman Trust Barometer shows that business, and business leaders need to step up and lead the way.
The seasoned communications leader, who lived and worked in Brussels, the USA and the Netherlands, will lead the agency’s strong corporate offering, leveraging her twenty-year track record of international business experience, working in-house and agency-side at ExxonMobil, FTI Consulting, ASML and industrial maintenance Services provider Stork. This new appointment comes after the hire of Dutch marketing communications heavyweight Michiel de Vries as Managing Director Brand to accelerate the agency’s brand offering at the start of 2021. It is also announced alongside two significant internal promotions which reinforce the agency’s commitment to integration across its entire portfolio including:
- A second promotion in her four years at Edelman for Eeva Raaijmakers to Chief Client Officer. This recognizes her stellar contribution to working with multinationals on complex marketing communications programmes hubbed from Amsterdam. She will now be responsible for innovation and leading capabilities including strategy and digital across all clients
- The elevation of Creative Director Seema Sharma to the agency’s Management Team has also taken place in a month where two campaigns she led alongside a buzzing Amsterdam team have been listed as finalists for the prestigious 2021 EMEA Sabre Awards
General Manager Steve Heywood said: ‘We have a responsibility to our clients and growing team to hire and promote the best leaders in the market including Ilse, Michiel, Eeva and Seema. We believe this sector and capability strength at the highest levels supported by a nimble, agile and innovative integrated approach throughout our operations will help us continue to deliver high quality, impactful communications support to our clients and win awards for the work we do. Most importantly though, it creates unique career opportunities for the people we work with as we develop talent and leapfrog in developing new offerings as a team whose work is recognized on the world stage.’
Added Ilse, ‘I’m really excited to join the team at a moment when our 2021 Edelman Trust Barometer showed there has been a global run on the bank of trust. In this reality, building and protecting stakeholder trust is more important than ever. In my role of MD Corporate, I’ll deploy my broad, international strategic communications experience to help businesses navigate reputational challenges - securing their license to operate by engaging in meaningful and productive internal and external stakeholder relations. I look forward to working with the hugely talented Edelman Amsterdam team to strengthen the well-established integrated marketing communications offering in the office, applying my personal drive and commercial insight to the benefit of our local and global clients and most certainly having fun along the way.’
