Dusseldorf Negotiating, selling and taking responsibility: Kristel Groenenboom gained her first entrepreneurial experience as a child at the flea market. Despite her young age, she quickly understood that it is much easier to buy toys than to sell them later.
Her feeling for money also arose during this time, she reports in one of the columns she wrote for a Dutch business medium writes. Anyone who did not leave their flea market stand properly in the evening had to pay a fine of 50 guilders. Spending freshly earned money straight away hurt then as it does now.
Groenenboom knew early on that she wanted to sell containers one day. At the age of four she decided to take over her father’s company, which manufactures and repairs special containers in Oosterhout, the Netherlands. At that time she was regularly out and about with her father on the company premises. “The men with the helmets, the smell of the welding work – that has always fascinated me,” she recalls.
At 23, her industrial engineering degree when it had just finished, Groenenboom took over the company. Some employees, but also customers, found it difficult at first to accept her as the new boss. Groenenboom was not only a very young manager of a family business in the second generation, but also in a male-dominated industry.
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“I first had to prove myself in the men’s world,” says Groenenboom. If there was a problem in the early days, employees would have called their father behind their backs. And on the phone, customers often asked for Mr. Groenenboom. Apparently they weren’t counting on a woman at the helm of a container company. “At the time, I didn’t even tell some customers that I was the managing director, so as not to scare them off,” reports Groenenboom.
In the first few years she changed little about the company – also out of concern that it would offend employees or customers. In the meantime, things have changed: “Times change, then the company must also change,” explains Groenenboom. You have to be open to new ideas. In particular, the great competition from China has afflicted the company in recent years.
Pools, gyms and apartments made from containers
According to Groenenboom, producing ordinary containers is no longer enough, you have to stand out from the competition. The container manufacturer is therefore now focusing on custom-made products. The company has already made a capsule from containers for underwater use by the army, student apartments or fitness studios.
The fact that large events could not take place as a result of the pandemic also hit Groenenboom’s company. However, the damage is manageable, she says. Despite the corona crisis, your company made four million euros in sales last year. The damage was also minor because Groenenboom was developing a new product during this time: the container pool. A half-height container with a waterproof coating. The idea was well received. During the crisis, vacation trips were canceled for many families and swimming pools were closed. Instead, consumers invested in the home and garden – and in pools.
Kristel Groenenboom is now 35 and has been at the helm of the company for over ten years. Her name is on various lists of the most successful women entrepreneurs in the Netherlands. In the meantime, employees and customers know who is the boss at Groenenboom. Some accept it more, others less.
“It’s not as rosy as it looks”
Only a few weeks ago a provider tried to sell their solar modules. When Groenenboom declined, the representative made an appointment with one of her employees. She was also speechless at first during a job interview: A prospect told her to her face that he was having problems applying to a technical company run by a woman. “I was so shocked that for a moment I didn’t know what to say,” says Groenenboom.
The proportion of female founders in the Netherlands is more than nine percent, four percent higher than in Germany. But you shouldn’t be fooled by the statistics, warns Wilma Henderikse, who examined the management levels of Dutch companies for the Dutch Emancipation Monitor. It is true that the number of self-employed women, in particular, has risen sharply in recent years. But only a few of them work full-time and employ their own staff.
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In the Netherlands, as in Germany, the additional earning model is widespread. That means: men work full-time, women part-time. Many self-employed women also do this. This is also confirmed by Sonja Bekker, who researches European social policy and working conditions at Tilburg University: “As a self-employed person, you can organize your working hours flexibly,” she explains. But that is only one of many reasons to register a trade. As a self-employed person, you also have to pay lower social security contributions and less taxes.
The Netherlands want to reduce the number of self-employed people
“But they are not entitled to a pension and receive no money if they are sick, unable to work or without a job,” explains Bekker. One of her current research projects deals with working poverty – the self-employed are the most vulnerable group, according to Bekker.
For these reasons, the Netherlands is currently trying to reduce the number of self-employed people. According to Bekker, it is important to support women entrepreneurs to work more, hire employees and grow. “I think the challenge is not just to be an entrepreneur on paper, but also to be successful with it,” says Bekker, summarizing the problem. They could be supported, for example, by longer opening times for kindergartens.
According to Groenenboom, there is a lack of female role models. She wants to be a possible one. At schools and universities, she reports on the opportunities and challenges that she encounters in everyday life as an entrepreneur. In the meantime she has already written two books on the subject in order to reach even more women. Every year on Girls’ Day she guides young Dutch women through the welding shop and hopes to inspire one or the other for a technical profession.
Your goal: more women in male-dominated industries. She also strives for diversity in her company – wherever possible. Currently, only four of the 30 employees are women. The same problem that Groenenboom has with her male entrepreneur colleagues: “When I look for mechanical engineers, I almost always find men.”
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