East-West Seed Announces Change In Leadership

Mar 20, 2023

By Rebecca Carmeli-Peslak

East-West Seed announced that April 1, 2023 Douwe Zijp will step down as CEO and Jean-Christophe (JC) Filippi will step in according to a release.

“Under Douwe’s leadership our new corporate strategy was launched, and our governance structure and company culture were strengthened,” said Ard Groot, chairman of the supervisory board. “Douwe’s purpose-driven and people-oriented leadership has been an inspiration to us all and I want to thank him in the name of our shareholder families and the Supervisory Board. We are very happy that JC Filippi will be joining East-West Seed in April. He brings extensive experience in international agribusiness to our team. With him as CEO East-West Seed will be led by a managing board consisting of six people, three men and three women from six different nationalities. As the chairman I’m very proud to see this much diversity in the company.”

“When I joined East-West Seed as CEO in 2020, we knew this to be only for a few years,” said Zijp. “I am glad to continue my involvement by rejoining the supervisory board. I leave East-West Seed in the hands of a very capable successor.”

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Video: Learning to Wrench From Dad the Hard Way

Harvest is a week out and the farm picked this week to fall apart. The truck needs a battery, the barn curtain's got a problem, and the corn and beans are telling us we're out of time to get it all fixed.

So it's a full day of wrenching. Tork supervises while I get the truck back running, then we're out at the hog barn where one rusted up part has the whole curtain system hung up. Ladder work, cable work, and a little dad-and-son disagreement about the right way to do it. We close it out walking the fields, shelling beans and checking corn, because whether everything's fixed or not, harvest starts when harvest starts.

Chapters: 00:00 Everything breaks the week before harvest 01:00 Tork supervises while I fix the truck 12:30 Out to the barn to find the curtain problem 14:30 One rusty part hung up the whole curtain 20:00 Running the curtain cable from the ladder 24:00 Walking the beans and corn before harvest 26:30 Wrapping up

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