Edwin van der Meerendonk

Responsible for the Operations and Supply Chain solutions that are servicing Disney’s commercial route to market for physical products. This includes the IT solutions to support the distribution of Studio content to exhibitors in Europe

Major accountability and responsibility:

• Responsible for the supply chain element of the licensing solution for the physical home entertainment category in Nordics, Spain and Italy in 2022 and for UK, France and Germany in 2023
• Integration of Disney’s and 21st Century Fox’ Home Entertainment division in Europe
• P/L responsible for a yearly budget of 60M euro between production, warehousing and distribution
• Management of the European Operations and Supply Chain and IT group (direct responsible for 25 FTE, indirect for 45 FTE)
• Management of service levels of business partners, including contract negotiations
• Interpretation of the strategic direction of the Company in Europe and constantly adjusting operations solutions for the various lines of business
• Initiate and implement continuous supply chain improvement projects for the supply chain solution in EMEA

Managing the European supply chain operations for physical products. End to end responsible for the P&L of an efficient and effective customer focused supply chain operation for Disney’s packaged media and merchandise products that are sold to retailers across Europe. Next to this, I was involved in the implementation of Disney's direct distribution solutions for games in Italy and Scandinavia and for Home Entertainment in in South Africa and Russia. Reporting into the worldwide Operations lead for the Home Entertainment category.

Major accountabilities and responsibilities:

• Starting from a decentralized organization; rolling out a centralized operations solution and organization
• Replacing the local in-country supply chain solutions across Europe
• Developed a comprehensive future state operating solution (requirements, work flows/practices, technology, suppliers, and organization)
• End responsible for the daily Retail supply chain operations for Packaged media and Merchandising products
• Governance and continuous improvement of the European supply chain solution, both from a process as an IT perspective
• Implementation of various direct to market solutions:
• Together with a global team the direct markets approach for Disney’s home entertainment products in Russia
• Implemented a direct distribution solution for Disney Games in Scandinavia and Italy
• Co-developed a direct distribution solution for home entertainment products in South Africa
• Developed and implemented a new EMEA supply chain strategy for Disney’s game platform called “Infinity”
• Managing the supply chain solution in the EMEA region for Disney’s Games business (production from China assembly in Europe).

May 2004- March 2006 Interim manager at Walt Disney Studios Europe.

• Walt Disney centralised their European supply chain for production planning and logistics. Edwin’s role was to provide interim management support as required by Disney. He managed the European supply chain organisation (ESCO) and supported the development of processes for operational improvement effort in the area of demand and supply planning and in the area of warehousing and distribution.

May 2002-Feb 2004 Project manager at Coca Cola Enterprises Atlanta. Responsible for Order to Cash workflow

• CCE started Project Pinnacle in order to achieve higher Share-Owner Value through leveraging synergies offered by integration across CCE and by reducing the complexity and cost of core transaction systems.

Jan 2001-Dec 2001 Supply Chain manager at British American Tobacco, Budapest Hungary.

• BAT had selected Hungary as a test market to win a higher market share using strategic channels and outlets directly in combination with a Siebel based CRM tool. In order to achieve this goal, a new supply chain organisation had to be designed and implemented.

Feb 2000 - Dec 2000 Supply Chain project lead at Polaroid Netherlands

• Managed an order and Inventory management project. Adapting order management and the warehousing and distribution performance to the changing European market requirements.

• Responsible for an European distribution gateway (cross docking operation)
• Managed a team of ten transport managers and warehouse managers
• Overall responsible for 180 employees
• Responsible for a budget of €5M.