Vivienne de Leeuw: "I No Longer Need to Be One of the Guys"

What is your big dream?
Ultimately, everything I do is about creating social impact. That matters most to me. If I allow myself to dream freely, it is about creativity, about really making things, and about working with children and animals. My dream for the Port of Rotterdam is not really a dream. It is an ambition. By 2050, the port will be emissions free. We are working relentlessly towards that.

Is 2050 not very far away? For many companies, the target is 2030.
I understand why you say that, but in the infrastructure sector everything operates on much longer timelines. It takes years to get permits to build something, to construct electricity networks, to bring offshore wind energy onshore and make it usable. None of that happens overnight. For us, 2030 is almost tomorrow. We have to work hard on 2050 now.

And we are already doing a lot. For example, we offer discounts to ships that enter the port using green energy instead of fossil fuels. We also require companies that lease land from us and operate on our premises to become more sustainable. We aim to make everything that happens within the port climate neutral. The port is vast. Thirteen per cent of all European energy flows through Rotterdam. That scale is exactly why our ambition for 2050 matters so much.

How would you explain what you do to a child?
I make sure there is enough money to make the port fully sustainable and green. We have two public shareholders, the Ministry of Finance and the municipality of Rotterdam, and they fully support this ambition.

What do you do when your course clashes with that of others?
I listen. I always try to understand where the other person is coming from. Once you understand that, you are better able to reflect on your own position. Am I still on the right course? Can I bring these ideas together? Otherwise, you end up just broadcasting: this is how it should be done, you simply do not understand. For me, listening is always key.

That said, it does not happen very often that my course really clashes with others. We share a strong passion here. We all want to reach zero CO₂ emissions, and everyone is committed to that. What does happen occasionally is that we want to do too much at the same time. That simply does not fit. Then we have to intervene, also as a board. Finish one thing properly before starting the next, for example.

Do people really come to work here because of that ambition?
We see that very clearly. By Dutch standards, this is an area with relatively high emissions. You could say: industry is dirty, I do not want to be part of that. But this is also where you can make real impact. If you can achieve emissions reduction anywhere in the Netherlands, it is here. That is what attracts people. They are also drawn to our sense of social responsibility.

At our New Year reception, we announced that we would sponsor the Youth Education Fund. Not only financially, but also with our own volunteers. We will give guest lessons at schools, help with the annual clean up, support outings. Do whatever is needed. People immediately came up to us asking: where can I sign up?

Which achievement are you most proud of?
Last year I won the CVO Award, Chief Value Officer of the Year. That award recognises CFOs who look not only at financial performance, but also at societal value. Together with the teams here, I have been able to embed that way of thinking throughout the organisation, and it has been recognised by the National Conference on Broad Prosperity.

We are also very open about how we do this. As soon as it became possible, we applied for a green rating, which indicates how sustainable you are. Sustainability is included in all our investment decisions. For example, we build a lot of quays. We now decide that this can only be done using electric equipment, and that the materials used must be sustainable or reused. That comes at a cost, and we explicitly factor that in. It is more expensive, but we choose to do it anyway.

What was the most difficult decision you have ever had to make?
When I worked as CFO at a company in the television and entertainment sector, it was clear almost immediately that we needed a different strategy and a different way of working. Fewer people were watching linear television, and revenues were declining by double digits every quarter. We researched the best way forward, developed a detailed plan, adjusted the organisation accordingly, and then the CEO decided to implement only a quarter of the plan. At that point I said: I am not going to do this, because it will not work. That was a very difficult decision. I had only been there for a year, but I could not stand behind it.

How do you make such a decision?
Again, by listening. I wanted to understand why he only wanted to implement parts of the plan. We had developed it together, so it felt strange. His answer was: my gut tells me this is the right way. I am the last person to say you should not listen to your intuition, but in this case I did not consider that a sufficient argument.

Which trait of yours would you like to let go of?
I have a tendency to feel insecure at certain moments. I find it nerve wracking to stand in front of a group. You would think: with your experience, surely you should be past that by now. So that insecurity is something I would like to get rid of.

How do you work on that?
By doing it a lot. I deliberately say yes to many speaking requests. I could easily give one or two interviews a week or speak at conferences regularly. So I try to do it as often as possible. People for whom this comes naturally, who step onto a stage with ease, I genuinely admire them.

Where and how do you get your best ideas?
While walking. It clears my head and helps me think when I am stuck. I prefer to do it alone, but sometimes I ask someone who has nothing to do with a particular issue to walk with me. I then put the situation to them and ask: if you hear this, what comes to mind? That often leads to surprising insights. You walk through Katendrecht and suddenly think: of course, that could work too.
You literally feel space in your head. You are not forced into fixed frameworks. Outside, your thoughts can go in all directions. In a meeting, people would go mad if I did that. Then you tend to stay within the line you were already following.

What is the best advice on leadership you have ever received?
To stay true to yourself. Ad Scheepbouwer, then CEO of KPN where I worked, said that to me. He had hired me, but I was about twenty years younger than most of the others. I asked him: how should I deal with this? And he said: just be yourself. I hired you for a reason.
It has since become my mantra: always be a first version of yourself, not a second rate version of someone else. If you start copying others, you are no longer authentic, and you stop making real impact. What Ad said reinforced my belief that I no longer needed to be one of the guys.

Did you feel that you had to be at first?
In my first job, at a consultancy firm, I really tried. Wearing pinstripe suits, hanging around at the bar every Friday afternoon. It was twenty five years ago, a very different time. A time when secretaries were still slapped on the backside. I strongly disapprove of that, but that was how things were then. I was the first woman in that department, and it took twelve interviews for them to hire me. I was even asked questions like: what would you do if a client put his hand on your knee?

I have seen colleagues change dramatically. When people move up, they can suddenly become someone else entirely. Harder, speaking from a position of power: I say it, so this is how it will be done. When I left that environment, I made a conscious decision. That is not going to be me.