Who is Ecomar ?
About Us
We are a Belgian company founded in 1991 by Jan Welsch and Ria Nijssen.
At the start of his career, Jan worked for the Logistics and EDP departments of a Belgian mining company. It was the basis for landing crisis & general management positions with different foreign companies based in Belgium. In 1991, Jan was commissioned by the Flemish Ministry of Transport for 5 years to develop a marketing plan for the entire inland navigation sector encompassing market research involving all parties and guiding the discussions between the various market players. The marketing plan needed to be developed to meet Europe’s new open market regulations and implementation structure. He therefore founded the company Ecomar and from the start positioning it as an industrial marketing consultancy. Later, other projects presented themselves that were more oriented towards marketing and distribution systems, especially in the area of pharma & cosmetics.
At the beginning of her career, Ria was a social worker and later held leading management positions in various medical rehabilitation centres. When Ecomar was founded she decided to work together with Jan to establish and operate their own distribution network.
They developed brands for major laboratories in pharma & cosmetics such as Siemens & Co/Strathos Germany, LVMH in France and Arkana Cosmetics in Poland. For distribution to the professional cosmetics markets, they founded Puracos which offered a customised, balanced approach to the market for companies. The principal markets were situated in the Benelux, France and North African countries.
Jan & Ria’s son Dries joined the global family business in 2009 immediately on completing his marketing studies. He successfully worked on every different aspect of the business and today is responsible for its successful expansion and growth.
Nowadays, on the basis of its current know-how and structure, Ecomar’s expansion policy focuses on other production partners and laboratories in pharma & cosmetics.
