Workforce growth of +67% at a single industrial site
Ahlstrom · MalmedyOlivier
Debefve
Senior HR Manager · Site HR Director
Connecting people, operations and performance.
More than 25 years of experience across industrial, technology-driven and service environments in Belgium and internationally. As part of leadership teams, I work on issues that directly affect the organisation and its ability to execute: workforce growth, organisational change, labour relations, transformation and reliable HR operations.
Senior HR leadership responsibilities in unionised industrial environments, with a dual HR and finance background.
Available for a new senior HR leadership role
Liège Province · eastern Belgium · northern Luxembourg
I usually reply within one business day.
A practical approach
Decide with facts. Act close to the ground.
01
Managers with time to manage.
02
HR decisions that work on the ground.
03
An organisation that enables performance.
04
People issues addressed before they become business problems.
Results
A track record grounded in operational reality
Transition from 3 teams to a 5-team, 24/7 continuous-shift operation
Ahlstrom · MalmedyWithout strikes or collective work stoppages related to labour relations
Ahlstrom · MalmedyLong-term absences (12+ months) reduced to zero
Ahlstrom · MalmedySole accountability for the monthly revenue close
Altran · Belgium & Luxembourg · reported directly to the CEOPeople personally recruited: executives, engineers, managers, professional staff and shop-floor workers
Across my careerImpact
Situations where I have created value
Industry · Transformation
Ahlstrom · Malmedy
2019–2025
75 → 125Employees
3 → 5Teams
eNPS > 50Engagement
Supporting growth, industrial diversification and cultural change
As a partner to the Plant Manager and leadership team, I supported a major site transformation combining workforce growth, changes to the operating model and a progressive move from three to five teams.
This evolution was built through a strong presence on the shop floor and regular labour dialogue, while strengthening recruitment, onboarding, engagement and absence management. More than 70% of the site’s final workforce was personally recruited during this period of growth.
Sustained growth without separating operational performance from the quality of employee relations.
Governance · Finance
Centre Spatial de Liège
2016–2017
~100People
14Team members
~€19mAnnual activity
Connecting people, governance and business performance
As a direct partner to the CEO, I led HR, finance, administration and infrastructure, with a multidisciplinary team of 14 people organised across two management levels and a high degree of autonomy in preparing and implementing executive decisions. The scope covered close to 60 projects.
This responsibility also involved high-impact financial and governance matters, including favourable outcomes in two disputes involving several million euros.
An experience that taught me to consider every HR decision through the full range of its human, operational and financial consequences.
Growth · International
Altran · Belgium, France & Luxembourg
1998–2015
650Consultants
150+Recruitments
€6–8mMonthly revenue managed
Structuring operations in an international growth environment
From 1998 to 2015, a continuous career within the same group, with progressively broader responsibilities in recruitment, HR and business administration across Belgium, France and Luxembourg.
My scope progressively expanded from recruitment and team leadership to operations and administrative management of the business, with direct reporting to the CEO. I also supported the transfer of sales administration to Kraków and the growth of the Luxembourg subsidiary from around 20 to more than 100 engineers.
An experience that built my dual perspective on organisational issues: human and economic.
HR Expertise
HR priorities I can take ownership of within a leadership team
Build and secure constructive labour relations
Develop a demanding but sustainable relationship with employee representatives, prepare negotiations, clarify room for manoeuvre and address sensitive situations without losing sight of business continuity.
Align organisation with business needs
Translate growth, productivity and transformation requirements into realistic workforce, staffing and working-time solutions that can be executed effectively on the ground.
Support leaders through difficult people decisions
Bring a structured, fact-based HR perspective to sensitive individual and collective situations, assess the risks objectively and help leaders balance business priorities, legal requirements and human impact.
Connect HR decisions, risk and business performance
Assess HR choices through their financial, operational and organisational consequences: structural costs, payroll, absenteeism, turnover, people investment and execution capacity.
Make HR operations reliable
Secure the fundamentals: personnel administration, payroll, compensation, labour compliance, absence management, return to work, HR data and critical processes. A credible HR function starts with reliable operations.
Attract, develop and retain critical skills
Structure recruitment, anticipate capability needs, strengthen onboarding and support managers in reducing avoidable turnover while improving collective performance.
Approach
How I work as an HR leader
Start from the shop floor
Understand how the work is actually done before proposing a solution. HR decisions are stronger when they reflect operational constraints, team realities and management expectations.
Ground decisions in evidence
Combine HR data, operational indicators and shop-floor reality to separate facts from perceptions. I provide leadership teams with a structured view of situations, including when the conclusions are uncomfortable, to support sound decisions and measure their impact.
Build solutions that last
Look for workable compromises rather than theoretically perfect answers. Whether dealing with organisation, labour relations or individual cases, a good decision must be understandable, executable and sustainable over time.
Deliver on commitments
The credibility of an HR function is built through consistency: prepare decisions properly, make the rules of the game clear, honour agreements and follow through when commitments have been made.
A key part of my role is to ensure that leadership decisions are grounded in operational reality and effectively implemented on the shop floor.
Career at a glance
More than 25 years at the heart of organisations
2026Mondelēz International · Namur plant · Human Resources Manager
2019–2025Ahlstrom · HR Manager Belgium & Netherlands
2017–2018Groupe Jean Gotta · Group HR Manager Belgium & Luxembourg
2016–2017Centre Spatial de Liège · HR, Administration & Finance Director
1998–2015Altran · HR, recruitment & business administration · BE/FR/LU
Languages, tools & standards
- Languages
- French — native · English — fluent · Dutch — basic professional proficiency
- HRIS environments & tools
- SAP SuccessFactors · Workday · Protime · MS Dynamics NAV · HR reporting & workforce analytics
- Standards & compliance
- ISO 9001 · ISO 14001 · ISO 45001 · EN 9100
What I’m looking for
- Role
- Site HR Director, HR Director, Senior HR Manager or Country HR Manager
- Scope
- Full HR accountability, with membership of the management team
- Environment
- An organisation where HR stays close to operations, with transformation and labour-relations challenges
- Location
- Liège Province and neighbouring areas · eastern Belgium · northern Luxembourg
- Terms
- A permanent role is the priority, with openness to interim management or a fixed-term role where the context warrants it
- Availability
- Immediate
Contact
Discuss a senior HR opportunity
If you are looking for a Senior HR Manager, Site HR Director or HR Director who combines operational proximity, labour relations, transformation and reliable HR operations, this is where my experience adds the most value.
Based in Verviers, I can contribute as a Senior HR Manager, Site HR Director or HR Director, in an environment where HR needs to stay close to operations, deliver reliably and add value to leadership decisions.
My priority is a permanent role within an organisation where the HR function can be built over several years, close to the business and its teams. I remain open, however, to an interim management assignment or fixed-term role where the context calls for it.
I usually reply within one business day. You can also write directly to olivier@debefve.be.