Elias van Herwaarden

Elias van Herwaarden

Head of Location Strategy, Occupier Services - EMEA Colliers International

Three decades of passion for cross-border business and location strategies, over 650 companies served, advisory engagements for more than 150 EDOs/IPAs, visiting university professor on International Business Strategies, called-for speaker on business trends in Central/South Eastern Europe ….., and still grateful for every new client, each local site visit.

Beliefs: Robust analytics are critical, but insights and experience should make-up at least 50% of today’s consultants’ value-add.

My tasks: Together with my international/multi-country team, I help clients in three critical areas: Translating translate business drivers into realistic operating models; Balancing operational excellence and cost efficiencies; Designing and Implementing footprint strategies, globally.

Geographic Areas Served:

  • Africa
  • Asia
  • Central & Eastern Europe
  • Latin America & Caribbean
  • Middle-East
  • North-America
  • Western Europe

Conducted field investigations in 48 countries and over 250 cities around the globe: Argentina, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, China, Colombia, Costa Rica, Curaçao, Czech Republic, Denmark, Egypt, Finland, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Hungary, India, Ireland, Italy, Lebanon, Lithuania, Luxemburg, Malaysia, Mauritius, Mexico, Moldova, Morocco, Mozambique, Netherlands, Norway, Paraguay, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Puerto Rico, Romania, Russia, Slovakia, South-Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, UK, Ukraine, and USA.

 Industries or Specialties:

  • Automotive
  • Chemicals
  • Consumer goods
  • Banking & financial services
  • Food & beverages
  • Industrial products
  • IT
  • Life Sciences
  • Oil & gas
  • Renewable energies

Areas of Expertise:

  • Business case development
  • Corporate restructuring
  • Due diligence
  • Footprint/portfolio optimization
  • Incentives negotiation
  • International expansion
  • Real estate negotiation
  • Shared services & Global Business Services, Global Inhouse Centres
  • Service Delivery Model development
  • Sourcing strategies
  • Supply chain/network optimization

Past Employment: Early 2020 Elias established Locationperspectives, a specialty location strategy consultancy that emphasized delivering practical recommendations and working with clients to implement these. From 2003 through 2019, Elias built-out Deloitte’s Brussels-based site selection practice to Global Location Strategies. He joined Deloitte from Andersen where he led the European Business Location Services team. As Chicago-based Vice-Consul for the Netherlands from 1998 to 2000, he was responsible for the US Midwest operations of the Netherlands Foreign Investment Agency. Through the 1990s he worked with Price Waterhouse – Plant Location International.

Notable companies served:

  • AVON
  • Bombardier
  • Carlsberg
  • Deutsche Post DHL
  • HP
  • Lexmark
  • Lufthansa
  • Maersk
  • Mattel
  • Office Depot
  • Philips
  • Sumitomo
  • Tenneco
  • Toyota
  • Vestas

Education: Elias is an engineer with a M.Sc. in Industrial Management from Twente University of Technology, the Netherlands

Personal: Born in the Netherlands. Has been a resident of 8 countries (American and European). Fluent in English, Dutch, French, German, Portuguese, Spanish. Notions of Polish and Russian.

 

 
Contact Info:
 
Phone:  32 495 59 4983
Mobile:  32 495 594 983
Email:  [email protected]
Twitter:  @eliasvher
LinkedIn:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/elias-van-herwaarden-a677655/