At Leadership & Sustainability, we are very proud of our continually growing team and would love to introduce our newest member, our new sustainability manager – Kim.
Meet our Sustainability Manager
Kim Beerthuis rejoined us this April as a Sustainability Manager. Kim holds a Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in International Business from the Rijksuniversiteit Groningen (2020) and Maastricht University (2021), as well as a Master’s degree in Sustainability and Systematic Management from the AKAD University (2023). Kim has worked for us during her Master’s studies in 2022 and 2023. After completing her degree, she took off to South America to travel through Costa Rica, Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay. Kim is familiar with all our processes and procedures and knows exactly how everything works within the company.
By the way, this picture was captured at the Fitz Roy in Argentina (the Fitz Roy is the logo of the sustainable brand Patagonia).
Want to know more about Kim? Keep reading!
What sparked your interest and made you decide to work in the textile industry?
I guess I could say I somewhat stumbled into the textile industry. Sustainability has been an important topic for me for quite some years already and I wanted to make sustainability my career. Hence, I obtained a master’s degree in Sustainability and Systematic Management. While studying, I was searching for a working student job in the sustainability area. Personally, I am very interested in the sectors that are close to the end consumers and fulfil the basic needs of humans. Two major industries immediately come to mind in this regard: food and textiles. Once I became aware of Leadership & Sustainability, my interest in the textile industry became even bigger, and I am proud to work in this field now.
What would you say are your proudest achievements, either on a professional basis or a personal basis?
My proudest achievement so far is the Utrecht Half Marathon 2023. Initially, I signed up for the Utrecht Half Marathon 2020 together with my friends from university. Beginning of 2020 we had already started training together and were getting ready for the run. But then as the COVID pandemic hit the run ended up being postponed. 3 years later, in 2023, the run finally took place, but my context changed dramatically. I was no longer living in the Netherlands nor was I living close to the friends I signed up with. Meanwhile, I started playing handball again, which took a lot of my free time. Meaning, I had to train for this half marathon all by myself without any running companions and despite barely having any free time. But with my eagerness and perseverance, I somehow made it all work and became fit enough to run a half marathon. 2 weeks before the run I also injured myself during a handball game, but that did not keep me from finishing this run. In the end, I finished the Half Marathon in 1:54 h and I am still very proud that I went through with it.
You will be taking on the position of Sustainability Manager at Leadership & Sustainability, can you tell me what way you plan to shape this position to generate value for L&S and its customers?
I have a very organized and systematic way of working, which I would like to bring into the supply chain team. Together with my colleague Julia Wolf, I will be co-leading the supply chain team and my main goal is to strengthen the team and build a great team spirit as well as implement a good structure such that we can work efficiently. We are coordinating and communicating with many verifiers around the globe. It is therefore important that we are well positioned and structured here at the headquarters so that all our processes can run smoothly and without problems worldwide.
Throughout your career what have been the most difficult challenges you have had to face and what would you say to people dealing with similar challenges?
I guess the hardest hurdle I have experienced so far was to find a starting point in the professional world. After my first Master’s degree, I’ve sent out countless applications and was invited to maybe 2 interviews. Luckily, one of those interviews led to an offer for an internship in a start-up. However, I meet more and more graduates who are looking for their first job and having difficulties to even being invited for an interview. I think it is rather sad that you are expected to have achieved the best grades in university while simultaneously already gaining years of work experience during your studies in order to find a decent starting job after graduation. My advice for all future graduates is to reach out to smaller companies rather than larger companies. I kind of got the feeling that younger and smaller companies are more open to graduates with little experience and are happy to grow and learn together with them.
What are you most looking forward to within your new position at Leadership & Sustainability?
One of the big reasons I enjoy working at Leadership & Sustainability is that there is a lot of room for growth, learning and development. I am fully aware of my current responsibilities, yet the nature of my position allows for flexibility and evolution over time. I am genuinely enthusiastic to be able to influence my own position as it develops in response to the changing needs of the organization.
From your professional point of view what would you say is the most crucial step that companies should be taking to improve their sustainability?
I think the first step is to even start thinking about sustainability and understand what it entails. I live in a very rural area in Northern Germany and we have quite a lot of production companies in the area. The first companies here are starting to implement sustainability programs into their structure but I also see a lot of companies that do not yet have sustainability on their radar. I also recognize some practices where companies think they acted sustainably but didn’t. Just as an example (as we have a lot of packaging companies in my area), when products are packaged in paper bags that have a sticker with the product information on them, this is often thought of as sustainable. However, this paper bag cannot easily be recycled because it consists of two components (the paper bag and the sticker). But many companies do not even think this far. Hence, I think the most crucial step is to start dealing with sustainability and understanding what it really means.
We at Leadership & Sustainability are very happy to have Kim in our team and hope you enjoyed our interview with her – if so, feel free to leave a Like!
Best wishes,
Karin & the team
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