ProRail CEO John Voppen will step down from his position at the Dutch infrastructure manager in July. Having led the company for nearly six years and spent more than two decades in the rail sector, he is leaving to join homecare provider Total Care, where he will serve as Chairman of the Board of Directors.
John Voppen joined ProRail in October 2005 as a Control Manager in ProRail’s Asset Management division, subsequently holding several senior roles across the organisation. In 2008, he became interim Finance Director, followed by a position as Business Director for Procurement, Conditioning and Innovation. Three years later, he was appointed Director of Traffic Control, until he joined the Executive Board as COO in April 2016. He took over the helm of the company in December 2019.
“We warmly congratulate John on his new position,” Chairman of the ProRail Supervisory Board, Hans Alders, said. “He has always committed himself fully, not only to ProRail but to the entire rail sector. We are very grateful for the many years in which he helped bring ProRail to where it stands today, from an infrastructure manager formed after the separation from Nederlandse Spoorwegen to an organisation firmly embedded in society. On behalf of the Supervisory Board, I thank John for his contribution and wish him every success in this next step.”
National and European roles
Alongside his role at ProRail, Voppen has held several positions at national and European level. In the Netherlands, he serves as Chairman of NGinfra, the association representing network operators across energy, drinking water, ports, roads, aviation and rail. He will also step down from this role when he leaves ProRail.
At European level, he spent around six years as Vice Chairman of European Rail Infrastructure Managers (EIM), where he focused on strengthening cooperation between infrastructure managers. Last year, Voppen also stood for co-chairmanship of ENIM, a relatively new network of European rail infrastructure managers aimed at coordinating international capacity allocation. According to a ProRail spokesperson, it is too early to say what his departure will mean for ProRail’s role within the body.
Move to Total Care
“I have worked at ProRail with great pleasure and pride,” Voppen said in a statement. “Together, we achieved strong results in a sector that is vital to the Netherlands. I look back on that with satisfaction and gratitude.”
Voppen added that the opportunity arose at Total Care, which employs around 30,000 people, unexpectedly and that he had not been actively seeking a new role. “This family business has a clear ambition to make a positive impact on society, which strongly appeals to me,” he said. “At the same time, I recognise in Total Care’s culture many of the qualities that make ProRail distinctive: a focus on people and colleagues working together towards a meaningful goal.”
Successor process under way
Wouter Koolmees, the President and CEO of Dutch state-backed operator NS, sent his best wishes to his counterpart. “With John’s departure, our sector loses a true railway professional, someone who consistently balanced different interests and strongly advocated for rail. I greatly valued our cooperation and wish him all the best,” he said.
Until 1 July, ProRail’s Executive Board will consist of CEO John Voppen and CFO Mirjam van Velthuize, with Voppen set to remain fully active in his role until his departure. Meanwhile, the Supervisory Board has begun the process of appointing a successor.
This article originally appeared in our Dutch sister publication SpoorPro.