Arent Jan (AJ) Hesselink is a senior leader in the global Edelman network. As President and CEO of EMEA, he leads the Edelman team across Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Hesselink joined Edelman almost eight years ago and, as COO of EMEA, has played a major role in driving transformation across the region, including building a new operating system that powered growth and drove integration across the region. Previously he led Edelman Amsterdam, which doubled in size under his leadership.
AJ has a strong track record of measurable results in marketing, corporate communications and brand building across various international leadership positions over time. He is a very experienced practitioner in corporate communications and marketing in the European marketplace, having worked on numerous enterprise-level issues, financial communications challenges, M&A deals, and brand positioning challenges in-house capacities, as a consultant and as a financial journalist during his 25-year career. For Edelman, AJ consults various clients on key corporate challenges, typically on board level.
Before joining the firm Hesselink spent more than nine years working at Philips where he held senior leadership roles in Philips’ global integrated marketing function, and was CMO for the Asia Pacific region, working out of Singapore. He began his career as a business journalist for Dow Jones and The Wall Street Journal, leading the organization’s Benelux business.