After a career of no less than 38 years at Embassy Freight Services, operations manager Linda Peeters is retiring. “We are going to miss her tremendously, but want to thank her for everything she has done for the company and colleagues,” says her successor Tijs Grauwet.
Embassy Freight Services was founded 39 years ago in Belgium. The freight forwarder offers a wide range of logistics solutions. Over the years, the company expanded further. Today there are offices in Belgium (head office in Merksem), the Netherlands (Rotterdam), Germany (Hamburg), France (Paris) and in the UK (Heathrow) where some one hundred and twenty employees are active.
“In this way, we have grown into a full-fledged European player,” says general manager Tijs Grauwet. “We have made a number of acquisitions, but most of the growth has been organic. Much more than acquisitions, we aim for a good relationship with our customers.”
That this approach works is illustrated by the companies that have been loyal customers of Embassy Freight Services for 40 years. “We find it very important to keep the existing clientele satisfied, we put a very strong focus on that with all employees.”
Customer-oriented
It immediately forms the seamless transition to the reason for this article: the retirement of Embassy Freight Services’ operations manager Linda Peeters. She had been with the company for 38 years, so from the very beginning. From 1 May, she will enjoy a well-earned retirement.
“Customers who hung onto us also hung onto Linda very hard,” Tijs Grauwet says. “Both externally and internally she made her mark. Even our current owner, Stephan De Pauw (also 2nd vice-president of Forward Belgium, ed.) was trained by Linda. When Stephan did a management buyout some 20 years ago, Linda was initially in shock that a young brat was going to take over Embassy Freight. However, after a day’s consideration and a respectful conversation, a tandem emerged that has never stood still in those more than 20 years.”
“Linda started here as a freight forwarder but grew with the company until she had full responsibility as operations manager,” says Grauwet. “Linda was a bit our all-rounder: all colleagues could always turn to her if they ran into something. She also knew how to handle things. If there were problems, she didn’t hesitate to step in and offer a solution.”
Expertise
“So at Embassy Freight Services, we have to say goodbye to someone who has been very important to us and who helped define the DNA of our company; Embassy was always her main concern,” says Grauwet.
October seven will always be a special day for Embassy Freight: almost 39 years ago, that is the day Linda started there, and 34 years later, her then opposite neighbour and successor Tijs Grauwet started working at Embassy Freight. “I dream of having as much expertise within 34 years as Linda currently has,” said her successor.
“As a message, we would still like to convey to Linda that we are going to miss her tremendously, but would like to thank her for her tireless efforts and for everything she has done for the company and colleagues. She will always have an important place within Embassy Freight Services.”
