Verlinde, France’s leading manufacturer and exporter of industrial lifting equipment, announces the appointment of Pierre Eluard as Managing Director. He succeeds François Gurniki, who has been at the head of the company for the last seven years.
Pierre Eluard, joined Verlinde in 2021, taking on the dual role as Deputy General Manager and Sales Manager for Southeast Asia. Over the past three years, he has brought his own vision to develop the company’s exports, in collaboration with the Sales Directors, focusing on commercial growth and subscribing to its slogan Next Level Partnership. With the appointment of Pierre Eluard at the head of the company, Verlinde begins a new phase in its expansion strategy.
Headquartered in Vernouillet (Eure-et-Loire), near Paris, France, Verlinde has been a member of the Finnish Konecranes group, world leader in the industrial lifting sector, since 1986. As such, Verlinde belongs to a family of companies with lifting expertise, renowned for the quality and reliability of their products. The figures speak for themselves: 80% of customers have been loyal partners of Verlinde for over 20 years.
Pierre Eluard shares his vision with us by answering a few questions.
Can you tell us a little about your career before joining Verlinde?
My career has been formed by 15 years of extremely enriching experience in the aeronautics industry, in major companies such as Dassault Aviation and Safran, where I held positions of responsibility in International Sales, Business Development and Marketing. In particular, I spent several years working in the USA, and managed customers all over the world, from Brazil, Italy and the Nordic countries to India, Turkey and China.
In 2020, the COVID crisis hardly hit the aerospace sector, and although Safran is an excellent company with great products, I felt the need to start a new professional cycle and take on new challenges. This is what led me to join Verlinde, in August 2021, in the dual role of Deputy Managing Director and Sales Manager for South-East Asia, and now as Managing Director. It was a risky gamble but one that paid off, with the help of the motivated and dynamic team working with me. What is essential for me in my professional life are the projects that I manage and the people I am working with; at Verlinde, I’m fully satisfied in both respects.
What activities have you been involved in during your last three years with the company?
As Sales Manager for Southeast Asia, I have worked hard to redynamize the region. In this regard, we are pleased to announce the arrival of a new Sales Manager based in Singapore since mid-April 2024 to keep up and strengthen this activity.
As Deputy Managing Director, for example, I led a Lean Management project – the “one KC way” project – to identify possible improvements to our end-to-end process and to gain in efficiency so we can improve the way we support our customers.
I was also responsible for streamlining and optimizing our relations with one of the Group’s main factories in Wetter, Germany, which manufactures our light lifting product ranges (manual hoists, electric chain hoists, light crane systems). With performance falling far short of our expectations, we had to build relationships between the teams, identify simple actions to optimize communication and processes between our entities, and thus improve customer satisfaction.
As the new Managing Director, what direction do you intend to give the company?
I felt that Verlinde needed to clarify its vision. I therefore initiated a joint reflection with the Executive Committee to define a long-term vision, structured into concrete actions. Of course, our customers and our sales activities are our top priority. We want Verlinde to be known and recognized both in France and internationally. We want to become the benchmark brand in the lifting industry for the quality of our products and the quality of the services we offer to our customers. It is not going to be a smooth ride, but we have the skills and the determination to get there. In this perspective, we have just hired a new Marketing Manager, whose main priorities will be to build up our Marketing & Communication plan in a structured way, and in particular to boost the reputation of the Verlinde brand. We are all committed to this approach, because every member of the Verlinde team is, and must be, a player in it.
In a few key figures, how important is Verlinde on the international lifting market today?
In 2023, our sales reached 54 million euros for new equipment and 11 million euros for spare parts. We have 40 employees. We have production sites in Germany, Finland and China, and our international presence is increasing significantly, with around two-thirds of our sales coming from export countries. We recently recruited two new Sales Managers based in Singapore and Dubai to meet the growing demand in these markets and to be as close as possible to our customers to better support them.
How do you see the lifting equipment market in France and internationally?
Like many industries, the market for lifting equipment is closely linked to national macro-economic conditions. In recent years, after the COVID pandemic followed by the energy crisis, we have seen a decline in sales of “off-the-shelf” products, with an increase in demand for spare parts and modernization projects for existing cranes. In addition, we are now more dependent on major projects, which exposes us to aggressive competition and greater fluctuation in our sales. In France, our business is holding up well, and we have good prospects for growth in the Middle East, South America and South-East Asia, although we are seeing a significant downturn in China.
What are your medium-term objectives in these markets?
In the domestic market, our aim is to maintain our leading position and regain market share in light lifting, by constantly improving the quality of our deliveries and building on our existing distribution network. Internationally, we aim to raise Verlinde’s profile by capitalizing on specific product lines such as our Stagemaker product line, dedicated to the world of entertainment, our Explosion proof hoists and our Eurobloc Belt Hoists.
What new products can you announce to your customers in the coming months?
We are pleased to announce the arrival of our new wire rope hoist, the new VF, which will gradually replace our Eurobloc VT range over the next few years, with features compatible with Industry 4.0. In addition, we have just started to offer a new ATEX-certified electric chain hoist, in response to growing demand from some of our partners for this type of product…
Is there anything else you would like to add?
We have set up a “quick ship” stock of Eurochain VX and Stagemaker hoists in our German factory, available for rapid dispatch, to be able to respond efficiently to our customers’ needs. In addition, we are actively working to improve our performance and customer relations, notably through the development of our online tools and our new representatives abroad. Our aim is to move forward and innovate, while remaining true to our values and constantly adapting to market developments.
