Who is Pieter Bouw
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Who is Pieter Bouw
Folks,
Who the hell is Pieter Bouw,
does anybody has some experiance with this Gentlemen ??
Let me know.
Soon he will be the new Leader of the directors board in the new Swiss-Airline .
Thanks for many postings
Cheerio,
Lime
[ 19 November 2001: Message edited by: Lime ]
Who the hell is Pieter Bouw,
does anybody has some experiance with this Gentlemen ??
Let me know.
Soon he will be the new Leader of the directors board in the new Swiss-Airline .
Thanks for many postings
Cheerio,
Lime
[ 19 November 2001: Message edited by: Lime ]
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Pieter Bouw is the indeed the ex-CEO of KLM. Had a long distinguished career for us, started in 1967. He has a degree from the University of Amsterdam related to economics and transportation. Many people think him of as a visionary man in the airline business (and I agree with that assertion). Seeing the trend towards globalisation well ahead of others. Through his leadership KLM participated in the leveraged buyout of Northwest Airlines through the Wings consortium. The open skies deal with the USA also happened around that time (the Dutch were the first in that department, and KLM management and the government are close in these matters). This was the real kick off in what we see happening around us. This investment worked out well for both companies. His period as KLM’s CEO lasted from 1991-1997. He did some things at KLM that we had not seen before. He got rid of a good number of departments and tried to right size the company. One catchy program followed another, all geared to improving the bottom line, and changing company culture. In his time KLM build up a position both financially and network wise (almost doubling in size) that is giving us the financial strength to remain standing in an environment where a good number of our fellow pioneers are no longer around or are a shadow of their former selves. There are also some negative things to his personality. He isn’t a natural communicator, comes across as stiff (maybe age softened him up a bit, lost track of him for the last few years). He has very strong convictions, and a view held by him is not easily changed. This led to a boardroom fight between the slick leveraged buyout specialist at NWA and the career KLM’er. In order to get things back on track his departure was necessary. In 1995 KLM’s pilots had two work stoppage within two weeks (each lasted for six hours), this was the first time that this happened in something like 58 years. He held the strong conviction that they were paid much more then other pilot groups in the world; this was a KLM wide sickness at the time (still lingers). Even after a benchmark done by both the union and KLM proved that the pilots were at the bottom end of average in their remuneration package he kept up the pressure for concessions. This led to the abovementioned strikes, it was a break in trust for the pilots. In the end the thing settled down, but things got very personal on both sides (also this still lingers within the organization and cockpits), and he undoubtedly still holds a grudge against the pilots as a group. He was replaced with a man whose style is more similar to the NWA men, was his number two. The Dutch use the term Calvinist to describe him. These references are to people who are brought up in the Dutch reformed church. This religion has few grey areas; things are either white or black. They in general and Bouw in particular have a strong sense of conviction, and a great work ethic. Probably not a bad fit for the Swiss. After his KLM career he did several jobs for the Dutch government. And he got into the papers several times with a lot of negativity toward aviation in general in the Netherlands. Mostly centred on a planned new airport in the North Sea (environmental gibberish that sort of thing). Felt like he was lashing out a bit. Long reply, I am sure just for your interest hope it gives you a little insight.
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From what I hear from people who dealt with him, he's definitely going to have or give a hard time to Crossair. He's probably not the right guy, as they would need an integrator, not a guy with stubborness (you can call that strong conviction).
Having had to deal with former KLM people of his kind, I know that there is going to be clash. The Swiss working culture also demands a sense for compromises and diplomacy. If you don't have that, you fail!
Having had to deal with former KLM people of his kind, I know that there is going to be clash. The Swiss working culture also demands a sense for compromises and diplomacy. If you don't have that, you fail!
