Vanden Recycling welcomes new managing director

United Kingdom-based plastics recycling company Vanden Recycling has named Kevin Thompson as its new managing director for the U.K. and Europe.

The company says Thompson’s analytical, focused approached and years of leadership experience in the areas of industrial distribution, purchasing, brand management, sales and business development are a huge boost and will help position Vanden for further European growth in 2023 and beyond.

Thompson has a history of working within industrial distribution and joined Vanden last year as a senior advisor. He says that after getting to know the business and the people, he recognized that Vanden was a company that he could really add value to.

“I’m delighted to be leading Vanden’s U.K. and European efforts at a truly exciting time for the business,” he says. “My key aims will be to enhance Vanden’s processing and trading capacity within these territories. If you are an individual or organization that would like to play a part in this exciting period it would be great to hear from you.

“I’m lucky enough to have worked with Vanden for some time as an advisor, so I am familiar with the business and many members of the team,” Thompson adds. “Both Vanden and I share a similar set of values, so I am delighted to be joining the company in an official capacity and I’m really looking forward to getting stuck in.”

Vanden says Thompson’s appointment brings the U.K. and European functions under one leadership umbrella for the first time to align and further strengthen its efforts in both markets. Vanden adds that it also complements the 20 new appointments it made to its U.K. and European teams across various departments in 2022, including sales, business development, logistics, finance and human resources.

Under Thompson’s leadership, Vanden says it plans to maintain this same level of recruitment throughout 2023 to continue to bolster existing team capabilities and help meet client demand. David Wilson, who previously held the U.K. managing director position, will now lead Vanden’s navigation of the industry’s evolving regulation and legislation protocols in a new role as director of compliance.

“The next few years will be exciting, tough, dynamic and ripe with opportunity,” Wilson says. “The world is changing, as it always does. Vanden has the momentum and strength to adapt to these changes and to make the best of them, not only for the company but for the world around us, too. We’ve seen some great new colleagues join the existing dedicated and expert team over the past year. We’ll keep attracting the best of the best globally under Kevin’s leadership.”