Back in 1997, Veolia Water, the world leader in the management of water and wastewater services, had no operations in China or Taiwan. My challenge was to enter these markets with a strategy that would explore business development beyond the regular municipal market segment.

I created a market foothold in China with Veolia Water Solutions & Technologies China (five employees) and a much larger entity in Taiwan (300 employees) to capture the immediately available business opportunities.

My first task was acquisition and partnerships in Taiwan, with a 5 million Euro investment in local companies. Second priority was ensuring significant contract renewal rate of existing clients and mitigating operational risks by disposing of non-viable construction activities in Vietnam and non-performing contracts. I also streamlined the business by creating management systems for procurement, risk and environment management, staffing, training and reporting. Within four years we ranked number 2 in Taiwan, with a 35% wastewater services market share and sales of up to 20 million Euros.

I also successfully acquired three contracts in China for a total value of 30 million US$, including the engineering, procurement & construction of China’ first BOT contract for the Chengdu water treatment plant (total capex US$110M).

I became aware of the growing importance of the environmental and green energy sector in Taiwan and realized new opportunities were emerging in the newly established local offshore wind industry. Confident that I had secured a strong market position for Veolia, I decided to move on to a new challenge.