Helma van der Louw has been chairman of the KVBC since February 2017. Learn more about herself and about her priorities for the KVBC.

What is your background?

‘Born as a child of a garage owner in a family with five brothers and two sisters I had a very nice childhood in Boskoop.After my financial career at Boerenleenbank – later Rabobank – I got in touch with the tree nursery in 1985. From 1996 to 2014 I had a great job at Plant Publicity Holland (PPH). Here I was mainly responsible for the communication to the participants/ tree breeders. Because of this I visited growers and organizations throughout the Netherlands and abroad and I have been able to build an extensive network at home and abroad. After PPH stopped, I started my own communication and organization agency, specializing in floriculture, and since 2014 I have been a city council member for CDA in Alphen aan den Rijn. ‘What do you want to achieve as chairman with the KVBC?
‘As chairman, I want to further advance the KVBC as a stable organization. With all the expertise we have within the organization, we can position the KVBC even better as an independent inspection body for tree nursery products both in the Netherlands and abroad. ‘What are your priorities for the association?
‘I have three important priorities:
Collaboration. We can not do it alone. We need eachother. The KVBC already works together with others in various areas and we need to retain, intensify and expand that. We must use our knowledge and expertise as much as possible and exchange and supplement each other.

Image. We have to work hard on this. I have every confidence in this with the existing board. The KVBC is an independent inspection body that operates both at home and abroad and is also known as good and knowledgeable. That should not only stay that way, we should expand that further. With all our knowledge and expertise we have to profile ourselves even better.

Young members. Bring our activities even more to the attention, especially for young members. That is also an important task that we are going to take on ourselves. Contemporary activities, communication via social media and the use of other means must help us in this. ‘

How do you see the future of the KVBC?
‘Rosy, but we’ll have to work hard. If we want to achieve our goals, we will have to pull up our sleeves. In September we will discuss the policy and put the well-known dot on the horizon. “

Does the chairman own a twitter account?
‘KVBC focuses more on facebook, the newsletters and our website. A twitter account is not currently available. If someone needs me, they often know where to find me. We find that we can communicate even more, but with targeted communication. We will consider this during our session in the autumn. ‘