SCHIPHOL, The Netherlands—GrandVision NV (EURONEXT:GVNV) announced this week that Paulo de Castro has resigned from his position as chief financial officer and member of the management board, effective May 15, 2019, to pursue another career opportunity. Following this resignation, the company’s supervisory board said it will propose to its shareholders the appointment of Willem Eelman as the future chief financial officer and member of the management board, according to the announcement. For this appointment, an extraordinary shareholder meeting will be called for Wednesday, May 15, the company said. GrandVision is the parent company of the U.S. optical retailer ForEyes. 

“On behalf of GrandVision, I want to sincerely thank Paulo for his seven years of service and wish him well for his next professional challenge,” GrandVision chief executive officer Stephan Borchert said in the announcement. “He has strongly contributed to the successful expansion of GrandVision’s international growth and helped me tremendously to onboard and to sharpen our strategy during my first 12 months in the company.”

Eelman is the former chief financial officer and chief operations transformation officer of C&A Europe, a leading clothing retailer in Europe. Prior to joining C&A, he held several senior roles at Unilever, including chief financial officer Europe and chief information officer. In addition, Eelman has been a member of GrandVision’s supervisory board since 2011 and has been acting as chairman of the audit committee since 2011.

“I am excited to welcome Willem Eelman to GrandVision’s management team,” Borchert said. Willem’s deep financial and operational experience as well as his strong understanding of GrandVision will enable a very stable and smooth transition and will support the company’s further growth strategy and its main initiatives.”

"Along with Stephan, we are pleased with the appointment of Willem Eelman as new CFO, which we will further strengthen GrandVision’s management team," said Kees van der Graaf, chairman of the supervisory board.

Eelman has stepped down from GrandVision’s supervisory board with immediate effect, and the board has initiated a process to appoint a new independent non-executive director and chairman of the audit committee.