IFMA Creates EU Advisory Board

The group held its first meeting in Stockholm this week and builds upon IFMA's actions that focus on issues of global facility management.

The EU Advisory Board of the International Facility Management Association (IFMA) met for the first time at the World Workplace Europe 2017 Conference and Expo, held May 30-June 1, 2017 in Stockholm, Sweden. The board, one of a handful of regional advisory groups, serves to advise the organization on matters that will enhance engagement of IFMA members in these areas and support the European IFMA chapters by helping them to expand their membership through insights, knowledge, education, events, and networking. The move furthers IFMA’s actions focused on issues of global facility management. global facility management

“As a truly global association, IFMA’s strength comes from the diversity of our membership and our ability to support a global FM community,” said IFMA President and CEO, Tony Keane. “Our board of directors represents FM professionals from around the world and from a wide array of backgrounds and professional environments. Regional advisory groups like the EU Advisory Board provide a more local perspective while providing members and chapters the support they have come to expect from IFMA.”

The EU Advisory Board members are listed below. Board members serve two-year terms.

Peter Ankerstjerne, MBA, COP, FRICS, IFMA Fellow – Liaison to the global IFMA Board of Directors.
At ISS, Ankerstjerne is responsible for group marketing including branding, web/digital, business analytics, sales support, and research/development. He has developed the integrated facility services model from idea to implementation, which today constitutes 40% of group turnover.

Jos Duchamps
Duchamps is managing director of PROCOS Group, a consultancy firm working across Europe for corporate clients. He has been involved in facility management for 20 years, a member of IFMA since 2000, and has served as a board member of the IFMA Belgium Chapter. He participated in technical committees of the Comité Européen de Normalisation (European Committee for Standardization) to create facility management standards. Duchamps’ dream is to have facility management defined as a sector in the Eurostat yearbook.

Alfred Waschi
Waschi is the entrepreneurial owner of four classical small and medium companies with 20 years of experience in the automotive industry and 20 years of experience in facility management. He has served in leadership roles within the IFMA Austria Chapter.

Ricco Groeneveld
Groenveld has worked for Accenture since 2012, and became workplace lead for the Benelux countries in 2016. In this role, he is responsible for the strategic direction and vision of workplace solutions (real estate, mobility/fleet, and operations and services) for Benelux and the Gallia geographic unit.

Helena Ohlsson Skjeld, MSc Arch, Dipl. FM, CFM, IFMA Fellow
Ohlsson is director of services at Scania Region, Sweden. She has more than 20 years of international leadership experience in property managemnet and facility management as a client, business owner, consultant, and supplier. She is a former president of the IFMA Sweden Chapter and a board member of EuroFM.

Erik Ahrsjö
Ahrsjö consults on facility management for both customers and providers in the Nordics, with a focus on Sweden. He lectures on and works in facility management education at high school and university levels and has been involved with the industry since 1990.

Marie Puybaraud, Ph.D.
Puybaraud is the global head of research for corporate solutions at JLL and is responsible for driving the thought leadership agenda in line with JLL CS2030 strategy and the JLL future of work ambitions, working closely with JLL’s clients, the business, and research experts to deliver best-in-class thought leadership to clients around the world. She has been published in leading international press for the last 20 years.

Maureen Ehrenberg, FRICS, CRE
Ehrenberg serves as president, global integrated facility management (IFM) at JLL. An internationally recognized expert in the field, she provides leadership and strategic direction for the IFM business leaders to develop, promote and ensure best practices in service delivery, operational standards, innovation, the technology roadmap, operational excellence and effectiveness, and talent management across the service line.

Ondrej Strup, IFMA Fellow
Strup is a leader of computer-aided design and facility management, and enterprise data management, with Nemetschek AG. Strup is an instructor of facility management at Czech Technical University and Economy University Prague. He is the Czech Republic head for preparing and translating the new EU FM standard (member of TC 348) and the new ISO facility management standard 41000 (member of TC 267).

Erik Jaspers
Jaspers has worked for Planon, a European-based computer-aided facility management (CAFM) and integrated workplace management system (IWMS) software vendor, for 14 years and currently serves as chief technology officer. He has more than 30 years of experience in information technology and has held various positions, primarily in IT project management and information management for multi-national companies like ATOS (Origin) and Philips.

IFMA’s establishment of boards to support key world regions advances its objective of unifying the global FM industry, following a significant step toward this goal last year. In 2016, IFMA entered a collaboration with the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) to provide industry support to meet the growing demands of the 25 million facility management practitioners around the world.