New colleagues! Team Blonk welcomes Menno, Michela and Naomi
Since December 2022 Team Blonk gladly welcomed lots of new colleagues. Menno joins as HR Business Partner, Michela as Senior Consultant within the Blonk Sustainability Tools team and Naomi as Consultant within Blonk Consultants. A very warm welcome Menno, Michela and Naomi, we are delighted to have you as part of our team. Let’s meet them!
Menno van Rest
HR Business Partner | Blonk
As per 1 February 2023 I started as HR Business Partner at Blonk. I’m very looking forward to contributing to Blonks ambition to inspire, guide, empower and enable organizations to contribute to a truly sustainable food system, to meet all Blonk colleagues and to work on the HR ambitions of Blonk.
I’m interested in people and especially people in groups and organizations. I get energy from advising management, teams and individuals about all important people topics. After graduating at the University of Rotterdam (People & Organization) and the University of Leiden (Civil Law), I started my career as a Labor & Employment laywer at HVG Law. As a Labor & Employment lawyer, I gave (inter)national companies legal advice with respect to (collective) employment conditions, performance, illness/re-integration, leadership, work councils etc.
I had a lot of contact with HR responsible persons working at our clients and working with them gave me also some insights about working as an HR Business Partner. After 3,5 years I decided to switch from a legal role to a more people focused role. I started at Ernst & Young (EY) and over the last 6 years I’ve had different HR positions for different service lines at EY (Audit services and strategic financial consulting services). I have worked with different teams and people and learned a lot. But after 6 years at EY, it was time for a new adventure. I’m sure I will find that at Blonk, a fast-growing company with a great vision and with very intelligent, kind and open-minded people.
Besides my work at Blonk, I like to spend time with my wife Jeannet and two kids Thomas (3 years old) and Feline (5 months old). I like to travel and to enjoy all the beautiful and different places and people on our planet. I also love to run and I’m now training for the CPC Half Marathon in March and the Gouda Half Marathon in November.
Michela van Kampen
Senior Consultant | Blonk Sustainability Tools
Learning about the ozone hole during my chemistry study triggered my vocation to address environmental pollution and to become a sustainability professional. I learnt about and applied Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) at the start of my career. I remember being fascinated (and still are) about the method because it is science and fact-based and helps companies to gain actionable insight in the environmental performance of their products. “To measure is to know” is my favorite motto.
In my latest position at Philips, I was responsible for the Environmental Profit & Loss (EP&L) (monetized corporate environmental footprint) account which was based on LCA. Although Philips’ ecodesign program was originally shaped based on LCA results, the EP&L generated new actionable insights which were adopted by the business.
This strengthened my desire to deepen and grow my expertise in LCA. I’m excited to be able to do so at Blonk, a company that is renowned for its LCA expertise. It feels a bit like homecoming regarding the sector in scope as I used to work at the Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food quality. In my spare time I enjoy outdoor sports, walking my dogs and donkeys in nature and reading fantasy books before going to sleep.
Naomi Buijs
Consultant | Blonk Consultants
In December 2022 I joined Blonk Sustainability as a consultant. I am excited to have joined a company which helps to make the agri-food sector more sustainable!
During my bachelor‘s in Global Sustainability Science at Utrecht University I acquired a broad knowledge on sustainability and environmental problems. I then subsequently completed a masters in Earth Sciences at the University of Amsterdam. Here, I gained more knowledge on environmental problems and further developed my data analysis skills. At Blonk I enjoy the opportunity to pursue my passion for bridging knowledge gaps with data analysis, whilst working on a diverse range of agri-food sector projects. In my spare time I enjoy playing tennis, travelling, and spending time with friends.