Luuk de Groot (25) started as a trainee in the Venturn Young Professional (VYP) program in December 2025. He previously worked in shipping and started his first assignment at container shipping company WEC Lines.
Luuk studied Business Management and Philosophy at Erasmus University Rotterdam. After his bachelor’s degree he worked as Terminal Operations Coordinator at Hapag-Lloyd, where he was the link between shipping company and terminal, directing parties in solving operational problems. After Hapag-Lloyd, Luuk worked at CMA-CGM in the transshipment department. There he planned cargo to the Baltic Sea area and Scandinavia, coordinated container transport within Rotterdam and took care of the declaration of animal products to the NVWA.
After several years in the port, Luuk began his master’s degree in Supply Chain Management. For his thesis, he developed a model at Hapag-Lloyd that allowed customer service to predict whether containers would remain at the terminal for long periods of time.
The Program
With his experience in the maritime sector, Luuk joined the Venturn Young Professional (VYP) program, attracted by its focus on personal growth and small-scale nature.
“I like that I can walk up to anyone if I run into something and that people actually care that you are doing well,” he said.
In the early stages of his VYP program, Luuk worked on the Venturn study on Fuel EU and ETS Maritime and passed his IPMA-D exam.
WEC-LINES
Luuk’s first and current assignment is with WEC Lines, a container shipping company in Rotterdam that works with feeders- smaller vessels that transport containers between different container hubs. Luuk appreciates the dynamics of his work environment, although those dynamics sometimes make it difficult to implement structural innovations and improvements.
Based on his previous experiences, Luuk now supports the operations department , where he can work in a focused way on process improvements and changes outside of his daily activities.
“I am very happy that Venturn found this assignment for me, it feels like the perfect first step for me in the program.”
For Luuk, this assignment feels like “the” perfect match. He builds on his previous experience, and with knowledge from the VYP program he can get the best out of himself. Although this is his first assignment, Luuk is very satisfied with his experience and is enthusiastically looking forward to the coming period and the new challenges ahead.
