Jan Gremmen, Commercial Director at Heesen Yachts, has decided to take early retirement and will be leaving the yard on July 1st this year. After almost thirty years of continuous, dedicated service to the company, he is making way for Fabio Ermetto, who management believes will prove a worthy successor.
After completing his studies in Naples and then Delft, Fabio Ermetto started his career in yacht building as a naval architect with Heesen Yachts in 1999. He then worked as Technical Project Manager and Sales Manager with the Azimut-Benetti Group for six years. More recently he was with the Dutch Yachting Company in the south of France. He will be joining Heesen Yachts on June 1st. The management of Heesen Yachts has every confidence that Jan’s young, talented and ambitious successor will help to ensure our continued success. The Heesen Yachts North America sales office will continue to be managed by Thom Conboy confirming the strong and successful collaboration.
Jan Gremmen’s departure marks the end of a career in a remarkable era. An era characterised by unprecedented growth in the yard and its products, and a technological revolution in yacht building. Together with Frans Heesen, as one of the founders of Heesen Yachts in 1978, Jan witnessed these developments first-hand and made a great personal contribution. His inspiring leadership, first as General Manager and for the last five years as Commercial Director, was responsible in no small measure for the company’s rise to its current position as an outstanding, world-renowned yard with a permanent workforce of around 300. The confidence he and Frans Heesen had back in 1978 that there was a global market for luxury aluminium semi-displacement yachts laid the foundation for the success we enjoy today. In his unswerving dedication to high quality products, Jan Gremmen personified Heesen Yachts’ passionate, company-wide commitment to quality. This, combined with the yard’s perceptive and effective response to the latest technology over the past three decades, has been the driving force behind Heesen Yachts’ phenomenal growth. The result is a fleet of over 140 unique yachts that sail the oceans under the Heesen Yachts flag. Our flag has enjoyed a consistently high profile under Jan Gremmen’s leadership, not least of all because of the tremendous boost he gave to the yard’s marketing communication.