Mr. José Gameiro replaces Mr. Leo Lubbers of the company Van Der Spek – who has led the ECED for the 6 previous years – and he intends to build on all previous achievements, while bringing his own signature and management style to the confederation.
Of Portuguese nationality, Mr. José Gameiro has earned his stripes in the machinery distribution sector with over 20 years’ active involvement in ACAP (the Portuguese Cars and Machinery Association), with one mandate as Global Vice-President and four mandates as Machinery Division President. With a military, economic and psychology background, Mr. José Gameiro is considered one of the most successful independent distributors in Portugal, dealing with manufacturers such as JCB, BOMAG, LINDE, CLARK, YALE, CHAMPION and JUNGHEINRICH.
According to the new ECED President, he aspires that his experience of over 30 years as an entrepreneur and business leader will firmly contribute to developing the confederation into a recognized European representational body, which will improve the relationship with the manufacturers and rental partners, represented at EU level by CECE and ERA.
To this effect, Mr. José Gameiro was elected on the basis of an Action Plan he presented to the membership, in close cooperation with 2 new Board members, Mr. Philippe Papin from the French association DLR, and Mr. Henk Kuiken from the Dutch BMWT.
These 3 well-known personalities formed the Task Force that proposed several changes to the current ECED structure, with as one of the main features the intention to allow for large independent distributors to join as direct members, while at the same time preserving the crucial role of the national trade associations, most of which have been ECED members for over 10 years.
Soon the ECED will be strengthened by this new form of membership, which will allow for a European forum representing the main issues of concern to machinery distributors and repairers, and will act as the chief representational body of the sector towards the European Commission and the European Parliament.
With this internal change also comes a change in management, as the ECED Board of Directors have chosen to use the services of LOGOS Public Affairs, a Brussels-based independent consultancy, well known for its services in Association Management (www.logos-eu.com).
This shift has been facilitated by the fact that Mr. Tom Antonissen, who acted as Deputy Secretary General of the ECED from 2004 to 2006, and currently a Senior Consultant at LOGOS, will be reinstated as Secretary General, a move which Mr. Antonissen has personally welcomed with sincere gratitude to the whole ECED membership.
For more information, please check www.eced-association.org, or contact José Gameiro (jose.gameiro@eced-association.org) or Tom Antonissen (tom.antonissen@eced- association.org).
related file: ECED_PR_May08_Final wp.pdf