Cloetta

Bertjan Davelaar was Senior Associate and Consultant at The Boston Consulting Group. He did not proceed his career in consultancy though. In 2013 he became Revenue Manager at Cloetta. Currently, he is Sales Director Netherlands.

Read the interview here

What did you want to be growing up?

“Whatever it was, it always had something to do with cars. First it was truck driver, but when I began to get good grades at school it became car designer. I studied Electrical Engineering to be able to work in many different fields, but in Twente I learned I wanted to broaden my scope even further. That is why strategy consulting was a logical next move. So did I live up to my childhood aspirations? Well, at least I’ve always had a company car – at BCG it was a Scirocco, at Cloetta a BMW 3-Series. It takes me from Rotterdam to Oosterhout and back every day.”

How did you know it was time to leave BCG?

“I had already been promoted several times, but I lacked the drive to want to become a partner. Among other things, it was about the work-life balance. But what did I want? Through the diverse nature of the projects I undertook, I had gotten to know a wide variety of industries and companies. That made it even more difficult to paint a clear picture of what my career path was going to be. There were so many interesting challenges! That is why I decided to go on secondment after four years. I discovered that at some point, you just need to make a decision and do something completely different.”