Transport and Logistics Flanders has a new CEO. Not a director like Lode Verkinderen was, but a CEO: Johan Staes, currently the managing director of Vlozo, one of the umbrella organizations in elderly care.
TLV had been without a director for months. The directors therefore looked outside the organization for a successor for Lode Verkinderen. Johan Staes worked for almost eight years at the FPS Finance and then worked from 2014 to 2020 as an advisor to Maggie De Block, then Minister of Social Affairs. Between March 2020 and June 2021 he acted as director / head of department at Iriscare (the bi-community public utility institution for everything related to social protection in the Brussels Region). Since then he has been managing director of Vlozo.
Johan Staes is therefore leaving the healthcare sector and will represent the interests of transport and logistics companies at Flemish, federal and European level from 1 January 2026. “Transport and logistics are an important link in the economic fabric. And in a welfare state, where attention is paid to care, you need strong economic engines. Without that activity you cannot provide economic value and you mortgage the welfare state. Without a well-functioning economy, there is no healthcare system,” thus Johan Staes.
At TLV they are very satisfied with the arrival of Staes. “His outspoken vision and voice in the social debate, his expertise in the operation of a federation and in defending interests will further put the sector and our organization on the map,” says Rudy Maes, chairman of the TLV administrative body.
