It's our birthday!

Embassy Freight Rotterdam is 20 years old!

For the occasion of the 20th anniversary of Embassy Freight Rotterdam, we sat down with two of its founder, Irma van der Weijden and Joey de Groot

On January 1st, 2004, together with Marco de Groot you founded Embassy Freight

We had been colleagues for a number of years already. The Company where we worked, was already an active agent for Embassy Freight offices around the world. They had advised a need for an Embassy Freight office in the Netherlands, which is what got the ball rolling.

And then, your first day in the office! Do you remember it?

The three of us spent our weekends in December fixing up an old doctor's practice. We were done on the last weekend of that month and on January 2nd we got to work! Bit quiet to begin with, but we immediately started marketing and had strong confidence that things would turn out well.

Of course we were lucky to have the backing of Embassy Freight from the beginning. But there's also a number of agents, suppliers and customers who have shown us support from day one. We are still and always will be, very appreciative of that.

Back in 2007, Embassy freight merged with Hooymeijer?

That's right. We had already grown a bit, but were still very ambitious. The opportunity to take the reins at such a beautiful family-run company, only comes along once in a lifetime, so we grabbed it with both hands.

Because of this, we went through an enormous growth in a short period. It was a time of great learning and development for us.

A changing of the guard

Blood is thicker than water, and expedition truly is in our blood. For his part, Marco was more and more intrigued by the transport side of things. As such, in 2018, Embassy Freight and Hooymeijer amicably parted ways. Embassy Freight then became a part of the Embassy Freight North Europe group, of which Stephan de Pauw is the CEO.

Together with Mark Jansen, who has been with us for 19 of our 20 years, we have daily control of embassy Freight Rotterdam from our offices in Vlaardingen. We still have a very good relationship with Marco and Hooymeijer, on a client / supplier basis.

In these 20 years, Embassy has grown from three, to forty staff! Did you anticipate this kind of growth?

We have always had a very clear vision. Where first and foremost we wanted to be a good logistics provider, with proper, no-nonsense service for our clients. In addition, we have always tried to be a good employer for our team. This strategy has proven to be the right one, and has always resulted in steady growth. We have created a great team consisting of colleagues who all logistics knowledge and experience. Our customers are happy with our service, and they in turn introduce other customers to us. That's the biggest complement you could ever get!

And now we're 20 years on!

We've been through a lot together, many beautiful moments like weddings and births, and business trips together. We have a rich collection of happy memories, and sadly, some bad ones too. Those are part of life too, and have helped shape us into who we are now.

And where will Embassy Freight be at the time of the 25th anniversary?

It's an ongoing process, and we will never stop working hard for the future of Embassy Freight, together with the Embassy Freight North Europe offices. Standing still equals going backwards. Just as we've done in the past 20 years, we intend to keep developing and growing. But our base is firm!

We would like to give special thanks to our CEO Stephan de Pauw, who never waivers in his support, Marco de Groot, with whom we started this journey, and to Herman Steehouwer, whom is the reason we were able to get our first office and who has always believed in us.

Last but not least, we of course want to thank our team, for their endless effort and enthusiasm. without them, we never would have made it this far!