Yannick Van Heers Takes Amazon Belgium Leadership
Yannick Van Heers is the new general manager of Amazon Belgium, taking over right before the year-end shopping rush, Nieuwsblad reported.
Eva Faict stepped down after eleven years at the company.
Van Heers steps into the role with no grace period as Black Friday, Sinterklas, and the Christmas season arrive. In Flanders, competitor Bol.com remains the dominant market leader across multiple domains, according to transport Roel Gevaers.
Van Heers brings marketing experience from the United States, where he studied at Ohio State University and competed as a swimmer. His professional career started at brewer AB InBev across Europe before he spent eight years at Amazon, managing pickup and return point networks in Belgium, the Netherlands, and Germany, gva.be reported.
The new managing director set a target to help Belgian SMEs reach a combined export volume of 2 miljard euro via Amazon by 2030.
Gevaers noted that official figures showed Amazon reached 400 miljoen in export volume during 2025, making the cumulative target achievable even without further growth.
Faict departed Amazon after building the local branch from the ground up to over 300 employees. She stated in the business podcast Move on Up that she had hit her limits within the local branch of the American firm.
Faict joined online supermarket Picnic to build new operations rather than stabilize existing ones. Jacques Vandermeiren, president of football club FC Antwerp, subsequently appointed Faict to the club’s board of directors to strengthen its non-sporting operations.
Amazon rolled out electric cargo bikes from a new distribution center in Antwerp to handle final-mile deliveries. The company also signed a memorandum with the Belgian government to ensure a level playing field and cross-border trade standards.
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