Arcadis Appoints Jana Belyusova as Chief People Officer

Arcadis Chief People Officer duties now belong to Jana Belyusova, who joins the global engineering and consultancy group on 10 August after three decades spent shaping HR functions at some recognisable names. Her arrival, alongside Barbara van Koppen’s move into the Global General Counsel seat, rounds out two fresh additions to Arcadis’ Executive Leadership Team.

Both roles sit at Arcadis’ Amsterdam headquarters. Belyusova comes over from Versuni, the appliance maker spun out of Philips, where she ran HR across 53 countries as Chief Human Resources Officer and helped steer a company-wide transformation that delivered real operational savings without gutting the culture underneath it. Before that stop, she held the top HR seat at Endemol-Shine Group and worked through leadership roles at Nike and Philips, building a reputation for pushing organisations through change without losing their people along the way.

Van Koppen’s appointment carries a different kind of continuity. She’s already been running Arcadis’ legal shop as interim General Counsel since January, and her promotion locks in someone who spent more than 16 years of her 27 years at KLM Royal Dutch Airlines as General Counsel. She’ll now oversee Legal, Compliance and Privacy across the business.

Arcadis CEO Heather Polinsky framed the hires as central to the company’s next chapter, saying leadership strength and the right calls on people and capability are where performance starts. She pointed to Belyusova’s ability to build organisations that move fast, stay inclusive and get results, while crediting Van Koppen for the judgement she’s already shown running Legal on an interim basis.

For her part, Belyusova said Arcadis’ clarity of purpose was what pulled her in, along with a workforce she called the engine of the company’s performance. Van Koppen, meanwhile, pointed to the collaborative spirit she’s already seen among Arcadis teams tackling complex client problems.

The two appointments land as Arcadis, the Netherlands-based engineering and design consultancy with operations spanning dozens of countries, works to tighten its leadership bench around performance and growth. Neither Belyusova nor Van Koppen inherits a quiet brief; both step into functions the company has flagged as central to where it goes next.

Belyusova’s HR track record spans industries that don’t always overlap, sportswear at Nike, consumer electronics at Philips, television production at Endemol-Shine, which is likely part of the appeal for a firm like Arcadis that operates across engineering, water, mobility and buildings. Van Koppen’s aviation-heavy legal background, by contrast, brings a regulatory rigour that should serve a company managing large infrastructure contracts and cross-border compliance demands. Together, the hires suggest Arcadis is leaning on outside experience to reinforce two functions it considers foundational rather than support roles.