Katrijn Clement appointed new VP HR at Unilin
- Unilin, the global reference for interior design and construction, is welcoming a new VP HR as from 1 June 2024. Katrijn Clement is taking the reins from Luc Lemarcq (61), who is retiring as head of the global player's HR department after a 17-year career at Unilin. Katrijn is far from a new face in the company. After seventeen years at Unilin in various HR roles, she wants to continue building on the Unilin DNA and commit to further international growth.
Growing with the company
After studying Germanic Languages at UGent, Katrijn Clement kicked off her career in 1998 at Hudson - then De Witte & Morel - with Unilin as her main client. In 2005, after the acquisition of Unilin by US-based Mohawk Industries, Katrijn joined the company and subsequently took on various HR roles. Over the past twenty years, Unilin has grown from a solid SME to a publicly traded international company with some 8,300 employees and a €2.8 billion turnover.
Since 2008, Katrijn has been Unilin Flooring’s HR Director. In that role she supported Unilin's largest division in its expansion from 1,370 employees to a team of 4,290. Along the way Katrijn oversaw the full spectrum of HR areas for Unilin's Flooring division, with HR teams in Belgium (headquarters), the Czech Republic, Sweden, the UK, the Netherlands, Poland, Brazil, Russia and Malaysia. In addition she oversaw several acquisitions in Sweden, the Czech Republic, the UK, Australia, New Zealand, Brazil (joint venture), Malaysia and India (joint venture) and built experience in starting up new production, sales and distribution entities.
Katrijn Clement: "A great benefit of my previous role as HR Director Unilin Flooring is that I was able to help shape Unilin's current HR policy. I think it's important to continue to roll out and perpetuate our current policies, with a strong emphasis on actively nurturing the values and organisational culture. Our culture is unifying in an international and multicultural context. We must keep in mind that we operate in over 30 countries with more than 75 nationalities. In recent years we have made a strong commitment to that culture. In the next phase, we will also train our entire management line to translate those values into their daily leadership activities."
Ready to meet labour market challenges
Labour market tightness remains a challenge. The company has responded to these challenges with The Dive, Unilin's vision of lifelong learning.
Katrijn explains: “Our people are a crucial asset if we are to remain leaders in our market. They drive our innovation and entrepreneurship. In addition to permanently upskilling our current staff in an increasingly complex environment, finding the right new colleagues is and will remain one of our biggest challenges in the years to come. The Dive will help us address the qualitative and quantitative mismatch in the labour market. The Dive is a broad philosophy committed to lifelong learning based on the 3E model (learning through Experience, Exposure and Education). So we take a much broader view of learning than the traditional training approach. Learning takes place in various forms and going to school is just a small part of it."