As the only woman field sales representative at NPM company De Boer Structures, Barbara Kalksma has been involved in some of the most prestigious projects this Dutch provider of temporary accommodation has taken on in recent years. She has mastered the art of managing both the explicit and implicit expectations of the most demanding clients while always staying true to herself and her team. “The one certainty I have is that events are never postponed.”
For five days in July 2015, the city of Utrecht played host to the world’s largest cycling event: the prologue to the Tour de France, known as the Grand Départ. De Boer Structures constructed 11,000 square metres of air-conditioned VIP reception areas for the occasion, spread across five different locations around the city. One of these locations was the bustling Jaarbeursplein square near Utrecht’s central railway station, where a two-story complex was erected covering more than 7,500 square metres. Barbara Kalksma was the project leader on behalf of De Boer.
“The Grand Départ was such an exciting project to be involved in, and our team really took a leading role from start to finish,” she says. “It was certainly very challenging from a logistics point of view, since all those city-centre locations have to comply with strict rules for the supply and disposal of goods.”
