Marcel van der Elst
Considered a "thought leader" by peers and clients alike, Marcel creates bridges between senior executives and project teams with tenacity and pragmatism. With a proven ability to design, lead and accelerate high-impact strategic business changes, clients appreciate his enthusiasm, his ability to see the silver lining around every cloud and plot steps forwards to achieve results.
Marcel's experience spans automotive, consumer goods, financial services and manufacturing industries. His general expertise is in defining and implementing new ventures and business structures in intersecting disciplines, translating customer requirements into product development, structuring the organization to support new business approaches and defining go-to-market approaches. Consulting engagements led by Marcel include comprehensive marketing organization reorganization in Europe affecting over 100 FTEs, development of a value-based pricing process in North America yielding over $10 million in profitability within a year, and building a strategic account management group in South America to support over $1 billion in sales growth.
Marcel grew up in the Netherlands, where he earned his M.S. from the Graduate School of Industrial Engineering and Management at the University of Eindhoven and later received additional executive education at Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management. He co-authored "Key Management Models" (Prentice Hall, 2003) which was also translated into German.
Marcel is fluent in English and Dutch, and conversational in German and French. Over the past 15 years, he has lived and worked in the U.S., Europe, South America and Asia. Marcel divides his time between Chicago and Southwest Michigan, where he lives with his wife.