Harry Kloppenburg, the face of the former Fides company, dies at 61

Author: Ron van der Ploeg

DE LIER, Netherlands: Harry Kloppenburg, Chief Commercial Officer at Dümmen Orange, has died at the age of 61.

He died in the early hours of Wednesday 15 July.

Born the son of a fruit grower on 4 December 1958, Harry started his career in ornamental horticulture in 1992 when he joined Fides, a household name in Chrysanthemums.  He helped paving the way for a series of acquisitions: Japanese beer brewer Kirin taking over Fides in 1993, H2 Equity Partners acquiring Kirin Agribio in 2010 and private equity firm BC Partners acquiring Dümmen Orange in 2015.

Harry held a variety of managerial positions in the company’s global plant breeding and propagating   businesses throughout his career. He was known for being a commercially minded professional always putting the needs and requirements of the customer ahead of anything and everything else. A yacht loving seafarer, he was the first to organise customer outings on board of his vessel. These trips offered the Fides team a great opportunity to enjoy some time with their customers and he was proud to arrange them once a year. Harry leaves behind a son and a daughter.

The picture in the header shows Harry (left), attending the launch of the company’s Green Trend Report on 28 November 2019. The picture in the text shows Harry with former owner of the Fides company, Jan van Dijk at a ceremony to kick off  construction of Dümmen Orange’s new Breeding Technology Centre on 1 November 2018.