FINAT, the Europe-based association for manufacturers of self-adhesive labels and related products, has announced that Philippe Voet has been appointed new president for FINAT at the online European Label Forum 2021 this week.

Philippe Voet takes over the presidency from Chris Ellison to steer FINAT for the next two years. Voet, currently CEO at Etivoet Belgium, became a member of the FINAT Board in 2019 and has also been part of the FINAT Technical Committee.

After his pharmacist education, he immediately stepped into the pharmaceutical industry. Voet developed in several management and leadership roles, gaining knowledge of technical, project, production, supply chain and operational excellence management. The label market is where he got the chance to bring together his gained knowledge with creativity, innovation and influence on sustainability.

Voet gets his energy from understanding customer’s challenges, brainstorming with his creative team, finding solutions that not only solve a problem but also have collateral benefits like creating long-term partnerships with customers, increasing customers sales and improving sustainability. “Seeing this all being rewarded with helping forward customers, their feedback, our awards and patents, is the absolute top,” he says.

Voet adds, “I want to embrace the post-COVID reality, for FINAT, my own company and in my private life”. Philippe mentions his search for the optimal new balance in the best practices of pre- and post-COVID. “As we have seen during our online European Label Forum this week, fundamental major changes are taking place in the sector. This will mean a new role and strategy for FINAT as well. As an example, major modification will be seen in sustainability. Europe is implementing a lot of new regulations in our market. We will have to search for the best way to embrace these and how to mold these regulations to our advantage. For FINAT specifically, this means we have to intensify our monitoring and evaluation with regulators to keep a dialogue going. This combined with the challenge to attract and retain talent in our industry means that we will have a lot of great tasks ahead of us for the coming years!”