17 Dec 2020

Next generation

In focus: ✔ Damen family business ✔ Damen Yachting

Ben Littler
5 MIN

Annelies Damen

Annelies Damen has been managing Group Real Estate as well as being involved with Damen Yachting's projects and marketing for more than twenty years.

She also served for eleven years as a Non-Executive Board member, before joining the Supervisory Board, in which she uses her experience to closely monitor and stimulate strategy development in order to keep Damen Shipyards Group fit for the future.

Whilst Damen’s family business is firmly fixed in ship and yacht building, Annelies’ passion lies in art, travel and professional photography. Two worlds she creatively combines in her role at Damen Yachting, leading the interior design concepts for internal projects and working with clients. She draws on her experiences from travel, love of architecture and knowledge of the art world as elements of inspiration to influence design choices and create evocative spaces to excite the imagination of clients.

Bear Damen

After being a Non-Executive Board member for eleven years, Bear Damen retired from Damen’s One Tier Board this year. He remains involved with the company in a broad sense. But the field of marketing and PR is what appeals to his knowledge most, given the wide spectrum of activities he performs outside Damen Shipyards Group.

With a background in graphic design, art direction and typography, Bear successfully ran a record label for five years during and after his studies in Arnhem and London. This venture left him building a high-end and relatively low-key creative haven and recording studio in Amsterdam. Still operative today, many producers and artists worldwide find their way to this unique studio. Simultaneously in 2014, Bear refocused towards his life-long passion and started writing and directing films, music videos, and commercials across Europe and the US. He is also co-founder, partner and director at Couscous Film Productions in Los Angeles and is currently working on mostly narrative projects.

Rose Damen

Rose leads Damen’s Yachting division. She feels privileged to look after Damen Yachting, making it stronger to one day pass on to the next generation. “I’m proud to work with such an excellent team. A strong team is a diverse team. That means different professional backgrounds and experience, different nationalities and, yes, more women. As a company, we have to become more flexible to attract the diverse talent that we need. Non-homogeneous teams are simply smarter. Working with people who are different from you may challenge your brain to overcome its stale ways of thinking and sharpen its performance.”

Before joining Damen fulltime in 2014, Rose earned an MBA from INSEAD with a focus on entrepreneurial management. This followed five years in fund management at a London-based institutional investor. Rose lives near the shipyard with her two-year old daughter Nicky. In her spare time Rose enjoys outdoor sports including sailing and kite surfing as well as performing arts.