Past the foosball table, jukebox and green-lit bar in the corporate reception area, Dolf van den Brink”™s office is the first on the left as one enters a long room of work cubicles at Heineken USA headquarters in downtown White Plains. In an open-collared blue shirt, the office”™s 39-year-old occupant works at a computer monitor at a modestly sized desk.
A visitor is surprised to learn the no-frills space, with a glass wall that exposes its occupant to passing office traffic, belongs to the company president and CEO.
Van den Brink wanted that open visibility and smaller, more spartanly functional office when he arrived in White Plains in October 2009 after a four-year management stint as commercial director and deputy general manager of Bralima, Heineken”™s operating company in the Democratic Republic of Congo. “Africa is very important to the Heineken Group,” he said in a recent interview at Heineken USA”™s 12th-floor headquarters at 360 Hamilton Ave. “It”™s one of the fastest-growing regions.”
His time in Africa was “probably one of the best learning experiences in my life, certainly in my business life. I kind of cut my teeth in terms of leadership, change, bringing people along.”
Managing 12 beer and soft drink brands and a distributor network of 4,000 wholesalers, the Dutch businessman doubled the company”™s market share and tripled revenue in Africa for Heineken. The company has been van den Brink”™s only employer in a fast-rising 15-year career that began at Heineken Group headquarters in Amsterdam in the Netherlands.
Though enjoying that success, “I was very thrilled when I got the call to move from Kinshasa, Congo, to Westchester New York,” a smiling van den Brink said.
He arrived at a company that was losing share, with its brand reputation as an upscale import, in a market in decline since the recession. “The beer market started slipping in 2008 and it really went down in 2009,” van den Brink recalled. “We went down faster than the total market.”
Van den Brink replaced Don Blaustein as CEO of Heineken International”™s U.S. subsidiary, a post Blaustein held only for two years. Blaustein succeeded Andy Thomas, who also held the top job at the Dutch brewer”™s White Plains headquarters for two years.
Van den Brink set about making personnel and physical changes at a company hobbled by a common corporate affliction: “a certain degree of complacency creeps into your organization,” he said.
The young CEO set about turning formal and closed-off executive offices with dark wood walls into transparent, light-filled spaces. He replaced the CEO”™s wall with glass. “People were able to look into my office,” he said. “It took about two weeks before people were comfortable walking past.”
“You can”™t breed creativity in a culture that”™s very hierarchical, very formal and in these silos.” The new CEO listened to and shared his personal values with the office”™s 120 employees and encouraged candor and transparency in the workplace. He continues to foster “the challenger culture,” van den Brink said, “where people dare to disagree, dare to be brave. ”¦Be candid and speak your mind.”
The CEO also had to address the outside forces and strategic issues challenging the company. Wine and spirits brands and the rise of craft beers had eaten away at Heineken”™s market share. Two dominant mainstream American brewers in 2007 merged to form the MillerCoors joint venture. That was followed by the 2008 acquisition of Anheuser-Busch by Belgian-Brazilian brewer InBev to form the world”™s largest brewing company.
“You had this very dramatic industry landscape change,” said van den Brink. “We really were not paying attention to that to the right degree.”
Heineken also had a reputation here as a one-beer company. “For 75 years we were a single brand operation,” van den Brink said. “Today it (the flagship Heineken brand) is less than 60 percent of our portfolio. What we have done is build a portfolio on the shoulders of the Heineken brand and the Amstel (light) brand.”
Heineken USA”™s market resurgence has been driven by Heineken N.V.”™S marketing agreement and $7.6 billion acquisition in 2010 of the Mexican and Brazilian beer operations of Fomento Económico Mexicano S.A.B. de C.V. (FEMSA), Mexico”™s second largest brewer. The deal fueled Heineken”™s growth in the multicultural and ethnic markets with beers that include the Dos Equis, Tecate, Sol, Indio, Carta Blanca and Bohemia brands from Mexico.
Dos Equis is now the fastest-growing brand for Heineken USA. Sales volume of Don Equis Lager grew 25 percent in the U.S. last year and Tecate Light also grew strongly, according to Heineken N.V. in its 2012 annual report on global operations. Van den Brink said one of Heineken USA”™s fastest-growing products is its Beers of Mexico package.
“That”™s a fundamental shift from where we were in the early 2000s, said van den Brink. “Last year we were growing ahead of the market again.”
With first-quarter beer sales down this year in the U.S., Heineken USA”™s sales to retailers declined in the low single digits, but still outperformed the overall market and gained more market share, its parent company reported.
Under van den Brink, the company has targeted innovative advertising campaigns to the millennial generation whose oldest members are entering their 30s. The company has proven adept at social media marketing and is the top-ranked beer brand among Facebook and Twitter users, according to a Heineken USA spokesperson.
The brewer”™s innovation in branding and packaging was seen again in March, when the company unveiled its redesigned Heineken “star bottle,” a taller, sleeker, more modern version of the iconic squat green bottle.
Van den Brink sees more growth and innovation ahead for his company. “Where we play, the upscale or high-end, is really, really growing very fast,” he said. Imports such as Heineken”™s account for about two-thirds of the high-end market while craft beers from domestic microbreweries make up about one-third, he said.
With beer brands doubling in number every five years, crafts and imports “are having to be squeezed into the same coolers in the grocery stores,” van den Brink noted. “The trick is to stay on the shelf. That”™s a real battle.”
“There”™s also a battleground for tap handles,” the CEO said. Heineken USA has added sales staff and has “put a lot of new resources” into its on-premise business selling its draft beers. The company last June launched Passion4beer.com, a website designed as an informational resource for bar professionals.
To compete in the growing spirits segment of the alcoholic beverage market, Heineken last year acquired U.S. distribution rights to Strongbow, the country”™s number-two-selling hard cider.
“Cider is at this moment one of the fastest-growing alcohol segments,” van den Brink said. And Heineken aims to market one of the world”™s leading cider brands.
