Ilse Verdonck said goodbye to her colleagues after a career of more than seven years at Van Moer Logistics. She started on 8 May as a brand-new expert Multimodaal at Multimodaal.Vlaanderen, part of the Flemish Institute for Logistics (VIL).
Multimodaal.Vlaanderen is VIL’s neutral advice point that informs and guides companies in their search for efficient and sustainable transport solutions. Ilse Verdonck has been on VIL’s advisory board since 2018 and regularly participated in workshops on intermodality. “I have been working with VIL for such a long time and have come over here so often that it feels like coming home,” she says.
Modal shift
In her previous position, Ilse Verdonck worked as business implementation manager at Van Moer Logistics. Thanks in part to her years of experience within the Port & Intermodal Logistics department at Van Moer, she researched several business cases in cooperation with Multimodaal.Vlaanderen. “One of our best-known business cases was successfully convincing Agrifirm to transport its export goods from Grobbendonk to the port of Antwerp by barge,” she says.
Need
As Multimodal expert at Multimodaal.Vlaanderen, she convinces companies of the need to organise the transport of goods by water or rail. She identifies concrete ‘modal shift’ opportunities and elaborates them into a sustainable business case, both in terms of operational and economic feasibility. “Many companies also come to us spontaneously. We give them advice and present opportunities,” she says. “The capacity of the Flemish waterways is still underused. Getting as many trucks off the road as possible reduces CO2 emissions and eases road congestion.”
Inland terminals
She has long been bitten by multimodality. “Early in my career in container logistics, I became fascinated by rail and inland shipping,” she says. “At Van Moer Logistics, I was given the opportunity to work within the Port & Intermodal division and participate in the expansion of the Container Terminal Cargovil (CTC) in Vilvoorde, the DLCT terminal in Grobbendonk and the Trimodal Terminal Brussels.
“I enjoyed working at Van Moer, but I was itching to take on a new challenge,” she says. “The knowledge and experience I have built up over the past 22 years, I will now be able to make the most of at VIL.”
Dynamic team
Filip Van Hulle is manager of Multimodaal.Vlaanderen. He took over the torch from Peter Lagey in early 2023. “With Filip’s appointment, Multimodaal.Vlaanderen has broken new ground. A fresh wind is blowing through the company. I have joined a small and dynamic team and am eager to sink my teeth into new projects,” she says. “Multimodality is a long-term work, but its importance will only increase.”
“I am also someone who likes being among people and sitting around the table with clients,” she continues. “A 9-to-5 office job is not for me.”
Experience
Ilse Verdonck has years of experience in the logistics sector. She started in 2001 at shipping company Hyundai Merchant Marine in Antwerp as a sales representative. In 2005, she switched to ZIM Lines. After this, she worked for eight years at Hamann Logistics in warehousing, transhipment and European groupage transport. After a short interlude at Panalpina, she started at Van Moer Logistics in 2016. Here she worked as business development manager Port & Intermodal Logistics and was responsible for developing and further expanding the terminals and terminal activities. She advanced to business implementation manager in January 2022.
Since 2019, she has been teaching at Portilog – the training centre of and for the port-related and logistics sector in Antwerp. Within the training programme ‘Port Professional’, she teaches about inland navigation. In June 2022, she started as a teacher for Portiskills.
