Royal IHC Names Erik-Jan Bijvank Chief Executive From October

Royal IHC is changing both of its top executives within a month. Derk te Bokkel hands over as chief executive on 1 October 2026 to Erik-Jan Bijvank, while chief financial officer Bert-Jaap Dijkstra leaves the company at the end of October to continue his career elsewhere.

Bijvank joins the Kinderdijk-based builder on 1 September and formally takes the chief executive role a month later. He brings more than thirty years of international experience, gathered at companies including Fugro and Stork, and arrives with a background in both the maritime and wider industrial sectors.

Te Bokkel took the job in early 2023 with a specific brief: to support the restart of the business and the further development of its strategy. Royal IHC now describes itself as having a solid foundation, a healthy market position and a positive outlook, and Te Bokkel has decided on that basis to step away and turn to other professional and personal interests.

Frank Verhoeven, chairman of the supervisory board, said the board is pleased to welcome Bijvank, whose experience, leadership qualities and knowledge of the maritime and industrial sectors make him the right person to build on the base laid over recent years. The board expressed its appreciation for Te Bokkel, saying the organisation was strengthened under his leadership and that a stable base for future growth has been established.

Dijkstra's departure closes a separate chapter. He spent the past two years working on the refinancing of the company, the financial groundwork behind the recovery the board is now describing. Verhoeven thanked him for his contribution and wished him well in the next step of his career. Conversations with possible successors have already started.

The two changes land while the company is trading on the strength of that restructuring rather than in the middle of it, and the incoming chief executive inherits a business the board has already declared stabilised.