Our management team consists of highly motivated individuals with a deep knowledge and experience of their particular function coupled with understanding of how best to apply their skillsets to the renewable energy industry. Furthermore, each team member possesses an inherent passion for the environment and climate change action, suitably feeding into the company’s core goal of playing its part in the green energy transition.
Our Team
Andre Kempenaars
Chief Executive Officer
Andre has started and lead a diversity of multiple companies before he entered into the renewable sector in 2010. Started in the financial world leading a group of software specialists that covered the implementation of special software in dealing rooms at large Dutch financial institutions. After 19 years working with nulls and zeros, Andre followed his dream and developed, designed, engineered, and constructed the largest indoor skydive facility in Europe in 2006. In the years after the concept was introduced worldwide. In 2010 Andre led a team of engineers to realize a 450 MW windfarm in the North Sea. With that experience he entered the young world of solar in Europe. Worked there as a business developer for Engie in Belgium and the Netherlands. In 2016 Andre challenged himself and started within the Unisun Group in the Netherlands. The challenge paid off and he build the team under his management to the current full EPC and O&M company in Rotterdam. In 2021 a share transfer was achieved and the cooperation with Alternus started. Throughout all of his achievements in every sector, Andre strongly believes that people are the most valuable asset for any business.
Leon Heijkoop
Chief Operating Officer
Leon joined Unisun in 2018 with great interest to become part of the fast-growing solar-PV industry. For more than 25 years Leon worked in the Oil and Gas industry, in Engineering, Design, Construction, Commissioning and start-up with International Oil Companies and global operating Main Contractors in various senior management roles. Leon has an excellent worldwide reputation in delivery of major EPC construction projects. He has spent more than 15 years overseas of which the last 15 years, till 2018, in the Middle East. The last 5 years in the Middle East, Leon was involved as partner in the development, sales and realization of the World’s largest Observation Wheel (250mtr) which was built in Dubai (UAE). It is this broad experience and skill sets that enables him to facilitate the Company’s ambition in growth and expansion. Since April 2021, Leon has become a partner of the Unisun Holding and appointed as Chief Operations Officer (COO) for all operating companies.
Aurelie Volkman
Office and HR Manager
Aurelie Volkman, held several manager positions in the retail-branche from 2009 to 2013. From 2013 she worked as a project manager at an advertising company until 2019 and gained her experience as project and human resources manager. In this role she was responsible for all current projects and awarding new projects. She was also managing project planning, coaching and controlling all team-leaders, job-interviews, appraisal interviews, but also handling communication with the clients and acquisition of new clients. In 2019 she entered the renewable energy business by joining Unisun energy as office/HR manager. HR manager she responsible for developing the company’s personnel policy. She acts as a point of contact for all levels within the organization.
Trishana Kewalapat
Office Assistent
Trishana started at Unisun Energy as an intern for her education Management Assistant. During her education she learned how to communicate professionally, manage calenders, and plan all activities during the following 3 years.
The Requirement for the internship fitted perfectly with Unisun Energy. She had the opportunity to do her second internship by Unisun Energy. This internship started in August 2021, which she successfully completed in January 2022.
In February 2022 she officially became a team member at Unisun Energy as an Office assistant. Trishana mainly helps with the administrative part and also support with important activities in the office. Together with Aurelie Volkman they try to get the best out of Unisun Energy.
In the coming years she would like to grow further in this position and masters all knowledge and skills
Marc Ebben
Business Development Manager
Marc Ebben has been active in the packaging industry for almost 20 years and held various sales manager and director, (global) business development and plant management roles. He started his journey in the packaging industry with Kappa, SKG nowadays and continued his journey with Weidenhammer Packaging, later Sonoco, before moving to Stora Enso and Corex. The last years he focussed on the development of renewable materials-based packaging with the major FMCGs for their chocolate, confectionary, and snacks packaging to replace non-renewable materials-based packaging. Marc is a member of the Dutch Packaging Professionals Association (VNV). September 2020, he started as Business Development Manager at Unisun Energy B.V., a renewable energy company. Unisun develops, optimizes, maintains large scale ground, water and rooftop based solar energy installations for themselves and for third parties. Unisun Energy also offers renewable energy solutions which do not only include solar panels, but also energy storage, charging and fullservice solutions to (multi-site and border crossing) companies.
Marc Verhoog
PV Engineer & Business Developer
Marc joined the Unisun team in 2018 after graduating his study in Civil Engineering in Utrecht. During his study he did an internship in Australia and encountered the solar industry and after completion he worked even further remotely from home. At Unisun Marc started to engineer the first Europe’s bi-facial solar park. With over 4 years of experience in the solar industry in various roof and ground projects Marc is focusing beside of engineering also on a business development role.
Vinod Kumar
Engineering Manager
Vinod is an engineer with master’s on Sustainable Energy Technology from Technical University of Delft. He worked with TNO in developing an energy model for a first of its kind Solaroad ‘A solar energy harnessing bike path’. He has 4 years of experience in the field of solar energy, worked extensively on a broad spectrum of PV industry from residential PV, building-integrated PV and utility-scale PV. He is with Unisun energy since 2019. He is actively involved in engineering utility-scale PV and O&M activities to maintain and optimize the park. He is constantly looking out for newer sustainable technologies to widen the services provided by the company. He is currently working on drone technology to map the health of the solar park and hence optimize the same.
Simi Olatona
PV Engineer
Simi recently joined the Unisun Energy team as a PV Engineer. After completing his master’s degree in Renewable Energy at Hanze University of Applied Sciences, Groningen Simi has played active roles in various departments within the solar energy market, such as working as a site engineer which provided hands-on installation experiences in Nigeria. During his internship with a research facility in Groningen, he also worked on finding the influence of rainfall on the performance of solar panels. In all, he has amassed almost 3 years working experience in the solar industry in both Africa and The Netherlands.
Avinash Kalloe
Electrical Engineer
Avinash is a recent graduate from the Delft University of Technology with a Master’s and Bachelor’s in Electrical Engineering. His focus was on solar energy where he specialized in Photovoltaic systems. His primary focus was on the development of a control strategy for a PV system feeding an electrolyzer. He is now looking forward towards continuing his growth and development by taking part in innovative projects at Unisun as an electrical engineer.
Ronald van Drunen
Project Manager
Ronald has over 30 years of experience with (electrical&mechanical) (international) installation projects and extensive knowledge and expertise in engineering & implementing technical projects. Having joined the Unisun Energy team in January 2020 Ronald has been responsible for preparation and execution of several projects in the Netherlands and is a certified electrical engineer.
Hugo Diepman
Project Manager
Hugo joined Unisun in late 2022. He holds a Bachelor’s and a Master’s degree in Mechanical Engineering and arrived in PV energy after a brief stint in aviation. Hugo’s previous renewables experience was in the development of an asset management team at an Irish based PV developer. In this role he developed the asset management strategy for a rapidly growing PV portfolio across the USA and UK. He managed >110 MW of assets at various stages in the lifecycle (under construction, during EPC handover, and during established operation). Hugo is looking forward to the fresh perspective working in EPC will offer him on the industry.
Jan-Jaap Landman
Project- Business Controller
Jan-Jaap Landman is the first financial in our team. He brings a vast experience in project control, contracting and finance in technical projects, working a.o. for a shipyard constructing large dredging and offshore vessels and the last 4 years before Unisun as a project controller for a greenfield tank terminal project constructing 54 new tanks in the Port of Rotterdam. Jan-Jaap helped companies and project managers gain more insight into the performance of the business and projects. Having a technical background, he understands the business and different dynamics in projects. He reports the (financial) status of projects and business including a constructive forecast, taking the various risks and opportunities into account. Jan-Jaap will help Unisun grow with healthy financials and the team realizing the aimed goals.
Iris Kempenaars
Marketing & Communication
Iris joined the Unisun team in 2019. She is our Marketing & Communication employee. Iris maintains the Unisun website and is responsible to keep the website up to date. She also takes care of all the necessities within Unisun such as business cards, stamps, presentation layouts, etc.
