Leadership team

André joined Lely in 2014 as International Marketing and Communications Director. Prior to this, he gained experience as (Global) Marketing Manager both in the UK and the Netherlands. At Lely, André also held the position of Global Sales Director and in 2017 he joined the Executive Board. In 2020, he took over the role of CEO from Alexander van der Lely. 

Maartje joined Lely in November 2024 as Chief Financial Officer and started her career at Unilever. After Unilever, Maartje joined many large and international organizations such as Royal Haskoning, KPN, Rituals, Facilicom Group and Plus Retail.

Gijs started his career at Lely as Chief Commercial Officer in 2013. Before that, he gained experience at Provimi and as Group Director at Cargill. At Provimi Gijs held positions of R&D Manager, Export Manager and also of Country Manager living and working in China. His last position at Provimi before transitioning to Cargill was Group Vice President until 2011.

Marijke joined Lely in 2011 as Corporate HR Manager and Business Partner and in 2017 she became member of the Executive Board as Vice President HR & Organisation. Marijke holds her current position as of September 2023. She started her career at Heineken where she held several positions during the 13 year she worked there.

Martijn joined Lely in 1998 as Deputy Director and has had many positions since then. He joined the Executive Board as COO in 2008 followed by his appointment of Vice President Customer Solutions in 2017. Martijn holds his current position since 2020. Before joining Lely, Martijn held several positions at Philips amongst others as Operations Manager in Germany.

In the mid-nineties, Alexander joined the family business right out of university and held a number of positions in the Lely Group. In his last role as CEO, the position he held for 15 years, Alexander focused on the general strategy, R&D, Innovation and business development. During that time, Lely has made a transformation from building agricultural machinery to worldwide leadership in the field of robots and data for the dairy farm. At the end of 2019, Alexander decided to step down as CEO, set up a Supervisory Board for Lely and become the Chairman of this board.

Dirk de Groot is President of CGI’s Strategic Business Unit (SBU) for Scandinavia, Northwest and Central Eastern Europe, a role he has held since October 2024. In this position, he leads approximately 8,500 professionals across nine countries including the Netherlands, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Belgium, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia. He started his career in the ICT sector in 2000 and has since held various senior management and consultingroles across the industry. In 2017, he was appointed Managing Director for CGI in the Netherlands, and in March 2022, he became SBU President for Northwest and Central Eastern Europe.

John has more than 30 years of experience in senior management and leadership positions in various organisations, most recently as CEO and Chairman of the Board of Unica Group B.V. In this role, John helped transform the Unica family-owned business into a high-performing company with strong growth whilst maintaining the values of a family owned business. John holds an MSc in Econometrics and an MSc in Marketing. Additionally, John is a member of the Supervisory Board of Unica Groep.