Jan-Renier Swinkels was the CEO of one of the most beautiful and best-known family businesses in the Netherlands, Swinkels Family Brewers, for 12 years. This family business has been around for over 300 years [since 1719].
As a speaker and advisor, his main goal with his story is to inspire as many entrepreneurs as possible, how you can pass on family businesses even better to the next generations.

Jan-Renier Swinkels belongs to the seventh generation of the Swinkels family. Growing up in this brewing family, it was a logical but also conscious choice to start his career here at the age of 24. During his career he has held various positions within the family business, culminating in a successful twelve-year period as CEO of Swinkels Family Brewers. Under his leadership, the company has grown strongly, partly due to the acquisition of the  Palm, De Hoorn, Rodenbach and de Molen breweries, the acquisition of Bier&Co, the expansion of Holland Malt and the development of the Habesha brewery in Ethiopia.

Jan-Renier Swinkels was born in 1962 under the smoke of the Bavaria brewery in Lieshout. No coincidence, since his family is inextricably linked to this brewery. Since 1719, this family business has been run by the Swinkels family, which currently consists of 215 members belonging to the sixth, seventh, eighth and ninth generations. Of these 215 family members, nineteen are currently active within Swinkels Family Brewers, formerly Bavaria.

In 2019, after celebrating the 300th anniversary of the family business, Jan-Renier Swinkels decides to take a different path. From this moment on, as a supervisor, he shares his knowledge and experience with other family businesses. In this way he wants to ensure that family businesses can be passed on even more beautifully to the next generations.