After several years serving on our Board, I am delighted to take the reins of EuropeOn, an association I have come to hold dear for its central role in uniting the electrical contracting sector in Europe. I want to thank our members for placing their trust in me and electing me to serve as the President of EuropeOn for the next three years.

I think our outgoing President Gérard Constantin already did some great work to make EuropeOn the thriving association it is today. And I am excited to take on the Presidency, especially now that the association is flourishing, with our members and the Secretariat working seamlessly as a team to bring value to electrical contractors across our membership.

In the last three years, EuropeOn has really risen from a more traditional sectoral trade association to become a leading representative of the electricity sector at European level which follows closely the EU agenda and engages regularly with EU policymakers.

I now want to ensure that EuropeOn can fulfil its role and become a beacon for electrical professionals and their national associations. As such, EuropeOn can be the focal point for this evolving sector, bringing electrical contractors together and attracting all the relevant players in our value chains to support our campaigns.

Moving forward, I want to build on the close cooperation we have fostered between EuropeOn members. This transitional period in the European economy will require more cooperation and exchanges than ever and EuropeOn is uniquely placed to serve as a forum for electrical contractors to prepare for what’s to come.

We now have five Working Groups as we set up Skills and Value Chain WGs specifically to address our changing environments, and where our members can learn from each other and from like-minded stakeholders. I was very pleased we could produce our report on “Business opportunities since Covid-19” earlier this year, which identified lots of potential opportunities for our members.

I hope my tenure will make a difference to the profile and confidence of the electrical contracting sector across Europe. To be more concrete, by the end of my Presidency, electrical contractors will have hopefully broadened their scope to offer wider services and engage in new areas of business, and at the same time, consolidated their key position within their value chains. Indeed during our roundtables organised with the Value Chain WG, we saw that electrical contractors can grow their business by engaging in new business models such as leasing electrical equipment, and using smart devices to offer more services, for example predictive maintenance which assist in developing long-term engagement with clients.

This is why I want electrical contractors to have increased their trust to train and tackle emerging technologies and respond to this new demand. This way they can take full advantage of the new opportunities ahead and become more profitable. Training should include soft skills, to get closer to clients and be more in control of their business, but also modern and digital skills that will be key for new clean installations.

I would also like to make our sector more attractive to all school-leavers, thanks to our increasing profile and promotion of the sector at EU level but also with the increased profile of our member national associations within their own countries. Speaking of members, I hope to increase our membership further across Europe.

With our increased influence and impact, I also see EuropeOn becoming increasingly attractive to other associations who align with us. EuropeOn can be seen as the leading trade association in Brussels, which I believe is possible as the importance of our sector and the people within it are increasingly being recognised.

Finally, I’ll work to ensure that EuropeOn can link in and be in touch with electrical contractors across Europe, through our member associations and our events. We have to work effectively with our national association members to ensure that our messages are passed on to electrical contractors across Europe to make our sector as prosperous and influential as possible.

I look forward to doing my best to keep our momentum going and working with all our members to take this almost 70 years old association to even greater heights!