‘New tech leadership is all about business change’
Digital transformation is all about business change, not about tech. This states Ronald den Elzen, Chief Digital & Technology Officer of HEINEKEN. As member of the Executive Team, he is responsible to accelerate the end-to-end digitization of the entire company. This transformational journey started in 2019, with involvement of a wide team of colleagues – most without IT background. This created a value driven, customer focused agenda, to drive both business growth, simplification and productivity at the same time. Digitization for HEINEKEN is called ‘becoming the best-connected brewer’ and one of the key pillars within the company’s Evergreen Strategy which was introduced in 2020. This transformation encompasses digital commerce, supply chain and support functions, with AI everywhere as well as modernizing the entire tech stack. People, change, upskilling, adoption and building new capabilities are an essential part of this transformation. Ronald den Elzen: “Over the last 4 years we’ve made some fantastic progress on our journey with 5 priorities: digital routes to consumers, data driven insights, simplification and automation, a secure digital backbone and a digitally enabled organisation. At the same time, we are very aware there are challenges and some “#ToughStuff” to work through. But it is an amazing journey to be on!”
Modern tech leadership
Ronald den Elzen has collected true end-to-end experience in many functional areas across the world. He held roles such as Finance Director (CFO) for Heineken in The Netherlands and HEINEKEN UK, led the largest Sales & Distribution business unit in The Netherland and was Managing Director in two markets, Portugal and the USA. This breadth of experience in Finance, Sales, Distribution, Supply Chain and General Management, has made him a holistic leader and a seasoned executive.