Hein started out in 1983 with a small mushroom farm. In 1987, he founded Univeg, which later became Greenyard Fresh. It was the foundation on which he built one of the largest fruit and vegetables companies in the world, with a unique offering in fresh produce, frozen and prepared products, and growing media. In the beginning of 2018, Hein took up the role of CEO for Greenyard, focusing on the company’s long-term vision and strategy, while also personally engaging with some of its key customers. As from mid-February 2019, Mr. Hein Deprez and Mr. Marc Zwaaneveld jointly share the role of CEO.
Marc was advisor of different international companies and consulted on investments, restructuring and interim-management during the periods 2002-2005 and 2011-2014. Between 2005 and 2011, he took up several management positions, including CFO and Vice-Chairman of the Management Board, within SUEZ Benelux & Germany. In 2014, he started as COO at Van Gansewinkel Group, market leader in the Benelux waste management industry. After six months, he was appointed CEO (until 2017) and led the turnaround at this Group. In the beginning of 2019, he took up the newly created position at Greenyard of Chief Transformation Officer to lead the Transformation Office created to steer the value recovery. In order to guarantee an embedded and efficient implementation of the Transformation Plan throughout the entire organization, he was appointed mid-February 2019 as co-CEO, alongside Mr. Hein Deprez.
Nicolas is a seasoned international financial expert, with many years of experience as Chief Financial Officer, and this in various industries.
He started his career at Kredietbank (later KBC) as Product Manager in 1994. From there, he held various management positions at KBC, Telenet and Solvus/USG People. In these functions he built up extensive management experience in both Finance and ICT, and throughout his career Nicolas has led and delivered on various M&A projects, Shared Service Center integrations, ERP-implementations and the streamlining of financial and operational processes.
Between 2012 and 2022 he was Chief Financial Officer (CFO) at the listed company Kinepolis. During that period, Kinepolis fastly grew: the footprint and market capitalization increased fivefold. For his direct contribution to this growth, Nicolas was named CFO of the Year in Belgium in 2020. From 2022 he was active as CFO at a medtech company (miDiagnostics), before joining Greenyard as CFO in October 2023.