Meiny Prins, Business Woman of the Year 2009

Meiny Prins, Priva CEO, was presented with the Prix Veuve Clicquot 2009 on March 23rd. by Ms. Neelie Kroes in the Nieuwe Kerk in The Hague. This prize – better known as Businesswoman of the Year – is awarded annually in seventeen countries and aims to provide a stimulus to female entrepreneurship and management.

In her acceptance speech, Meiny Prins mentioned several current themes – entrepreneurship, sustainability, innovation, technology and family-run businesses. The new Businesswoman of the Year has a clear vision concerning each of these themes that she embodies within her own company, Priva. She expressed her ambitions to help contribute toward a better world together with others.

Priva – celebrating its fifty-year anniversary this year – supplies products and services to the greenhouse horticultural and commercial & residential building sectors in more than seventy countries. More than four hundred employees working at locations in seven countries worldwide and two subsidiaries in Arnhem focus daily on the development and distribution of climate solution products. Priva is the world market leader in the horticultural sector and has also earned its spurs in the construction industry.

Priva’s home base is located on the Priva Campus in De Lier located in the Westland district of South Holland. Its head offices serve as a shining example of Priva’s philosophies where almost three hundred employees work together to create innovative solutions. These solutions help generate maximum productivity for the horticultural and building management sectors by providing optimal climate control and using only a minimum of scarce natural resources such as energy and water.

Meiny Prins is the second generation of the Prins family to run the business that was originally founded in De Lier. Throughout the years that she has been at the helm of this now international company, a basis has been established on which to chart a new course from a product to market-oriented organization.

Growth and development play a central role within the company, for Priva and its employees, as well as for customers and users of its products. Priva’s values include mutual respect, genuine engagement and fulfilment of its promises. These values are embodied in the way in which Priva interacts with its customers, end-users, suppliers, employees and the world at large.

For more information, please contact:

Wilma Romeyn
Communications Advisor/PA
+31 (0)174 522849
+31 (0)6 11 314320