Barry Koolen is CEO EMEA and Executive Board Member at Crown Worldwide Group, a global ‘logistics and people services’ provider. As a native New Zealander, Koolen has used his experience relocating to the UK to shape the delivery of Crown’s services, and his leadership style is rooted in putting people at the heart of business.
Crown, established in 1965 in Japan and operating in 45 countries, is one of the largest privately owned specialist logistics companies in the world. The organisation has expanded into a global business encompassing five international business units and several local brands, over the course of six decades, with services ranging from global and domestic relocations, records and information management, workplace solutions, fine art storage and transportation, logistics and a wine cellar.
Tell us about yourself and your role
I lead Crown Worldwide Group’s businesses in EMEA, and I’m responsible for the results and performance of the region. I’m also the Group’s Chief Strategy Officer and a member of the Executive Board, working to ensure the long-term health of the company and making investment decisions.
My role involves ensuring that our teams are supporting customers by making it simpler to live, work, and do business anywhere in the world, mitigating the challenges of digital transformation, the changing world of work, and living overseas. I am also tasked with empowering Crown’s leaders to diversify our brands and innovate to add greater value for clients and supply chain partners.
Can you talk about your background and journey towards your current role?
I started out in my native New Zealand and after attending St Johns College Hamilton, my first ever job was with HM customs where I found myself developing an interest in international trade and the movement of people. I then worked for The Moving Company, where I moved up the ranks to become Branch Manager.
I took the opportunity in the mid-90s to relocate to the UK to work as the General Manager for Crown Relocations in Scotland. I believe it is this lived experience of understanding exactly what relocations entail that has allowed me to take an empathetic approach to helping others undergoing the moving process themselves, transitioning from one culture to another. This pivotal move led me to later become the managing director for UKI and Northern Europe, then CEO for the EMEA region.
The international relocations industry marries the movement of people with the logistics of moving household goods and possessions from one side of the world to another. During my journey at Crown, I’ve witnessed the company use this expertise in physical logistics to diversify its services. Storage and handling of records, artwork, furniture and other workplace goods, is now a key part of our broader offering. We are a team of experts across specialist corporate sectors, enabling us to advise clients around employee relocation, workplace change, digitalization and more.
How is Crown Worldwide ensuring that its global operations are sustainable?
We have a strong legacy rooted in social sustainability, including giving back to the communities in which we operate. Our founder, Jim Thompson, has embodied this philosophy, building schools and funding hospices to give back and champion causes we care about.
We are driven by customers to not only demonstrate how we are reducing our own carbon footprint, but how our service offering is helping them reduce theirs. This legacy is now evolving to encompass a strong focus on decarbonisation, powered by data, education, investment and empowerment. In 2023, we partnered with carbon accounting platform Normative to map our global carbon footprint and we’re now in the process of developing a net-zero strategy based on that data, building on the action our regions are already taking. That is no small task for a global company operating five different business units – and where in some markets the appetite to adopt a positive decarbonisation programme is less of a priority. We’ve reduced carbon emissions by 57% since 2019 in the UK, and operations there are rated gold by EcoVadis, putting Crown UKI in the top 5% of reporting companies.
In addition to these ongoing initiatives, Crown Worldwide’s Sustainability Report 2024 highlights our comprehensive approach to environmental and social responsibility. The report details measurable progress in reducing carbon emissions, enhanced transparency through robust data collection, and a clear roadmap towards achieving net zero. It also emphasises Crown’s commitment to community engagement and responsible business practices, underlining how sustainability is embedded across all five business units worldwide.
Building on this progress is paramount. Now that we have data at our disposal, we’re ensuring that our people are empowered to make the right decisions, and we’re investing in the right clean energy solutions across our operations to drive meaningful impact to reduce our carbon footprint.
How is Crown Worldwide embracing digital innovation?
When it comes to enhancing efficiency, our key priority is: “what will make it simpler?”
Technology is often the route to a simpler outcome, so we’re investing in this across all of our brands. But we recognise, too, that technology is only an enabler when applied in the right way and in conjunction with human need. Our Information Management team embodies this principle, supporting organisations through their transition to digital information solutions. Using both emerging and established technologies, we enable clients to access and manage their data seamlessly via intuitive self-service platforms.
The emergence of AI has incredible potential to bring about huge benefits, and we are already harnessing its ability to analyse and interpret information and free-up our people to undertake more people-centric tasks. We see wider potential for digital innovation to make workplaces more efficient and to better-utilise office space in a world of hybrid working. We are also introducing technology to accelerate decarbonisation and make our operations safer, such as through the introduction of a fleet management system that we are implementing.
Looking ahead, what are your goals for the organisation?
We have important goals around sustainability: setting a net-zero target to unify our global teams behind a common objective, and the development of a sustainable procurement policy. It’s vital that collective ambitions to reduce carbon emissions and deliver greater social impact form a central part of that collaboration.
With aims to diversify the business further, we have also made several acquisitions in the last year, particularly in our Workspace brand, including bringing Singapore-based i.Dezign – an office interiors company – into the fold. We’re empowering more of that growth mindset among our teams.
To fit with our property strategy, we continue to look for new ways to offer storage services to customers. Our Fine Art storage offering continues to grow, and we are looking at innovative ways to drive self-storage concepts across the company.
Working with clients to digitalise their information is another big goal for us; we’ve seen 35% growth in this area over the last year. Providing resilience, ensuring compliance, and bolstering efficiency through tailored digital information management is a huge opportunity for every part of every business.
