Eurofins

With over 62,000 employees, the Eurofins network is a global leader in Testing for Life, and over the last 20 years has been one of the fastest growing companies in the world, thanks to its innovation in technology and service. In this new series of articles, some of the leaders behind our success will be discussing the ingredient that makes Eurofins unique: the shared entrepreneurial spirit.

Let’s start with Yvoine, Senior Vice President of Environment Testing Europe, as well as President of the Eurofins Foundation. She’ll share her extraordinary journey with Eurofins.

A unique career path

Yvoine is Senior Vice President of Environment Testing Europe at Eurofins, as well as President of the Eurofins Foundation. Yvoine joined Eurofins in 2016, initially taking on responsibility for the Food and Environment Testing businesses across the Nordics and Central and Eastern Europe. Since 2020, Yvoine has been leading Eurofins’ Environment Testing activities across Europe, and currently oversees the IT for Food and Environment Testing in Europe.

During the COVID-19 crisis, Yvoine was also responsible for launching and driving the SAFER@WORK™ programme, which aimed to reduce the impact of the pandemic on businesses, communities, and governments around the globe by providing comprehensive, end-to-end testing solutions. Among other SAFER@WORK™ initiatives, around 1,000 testing sampling points were across Europe established, covering major travelling hubs and a broad variety of locations where testing access was needed.

Making a difference in the market

Yvoine currently manages a market-leading Environment Testing network across Europe. Her team is made up of several thousand employees across hundreds of sites.

Within Environment Testing, Yvoine’s teams contribute to a cleaner and safer environment by providing exemplary laboratory testing, monitoring and expert services to a wide range of industrial companies, environmental consultants, contractors, retailers and government authorities. Services include the testing of water, air, soil, waste and other matrices to assess quality and impact on health and the environment.

For Yvoine, the entrepreneurial spirit is what makes her leadership role at Eurofins unique. She says: “Eurofins is a global network of many start-ups and scale-ups. The whole Eurofins DNA is based on placing trust in an individual to run a laboratory or a business in a certain country, or even across a whole region. This person manages their business almost like they would run their own company. With this much autonomy, freedom, and trust to operate, come duties: the Eurofins network of companies is a demanding and fast-paced workplace, where you need to take initiative and think outside the box to be successful.”

According to Yvoine, Eurofins leaders are true entrepreneurs with a strong personality, who can adapt quickly in times of crisis. They are also very close to their markets, customers and, of course, their teams.

Yvoine tells us more about what she has been able to achieve with Eurofins so far: “During my seven years here, I have been involved in close to 10 acquisitions per annum, launched several start-ups each year, and built our presence in 10 new countries.”

At the forefront of innovation and technology

Eurofins is at the forefront of innovation and technology, and will continue to stand out from the competition by continually developing new products and methods. This is something Yvoine enjoys about her role: she explains that there will always be a need for Environment Testing as the world tackles increasingly important issues such as polluted waterways and emerging contaminants (for example. microplastics and PFAS). There is plenty of innovation yet to come too, with Environmental DNA (eDNA) analysis gaining more traction and attention. eDNA refers to the genetic material present in environmental samples such as soil, water, and air. By utilising Next Generation Sequencing (NGS), new possibilities emerge around how biodiversity programmes can be tracked and supported.

Nurturing the entrepreneurial spirit as the Eurofins network grows

An entrepreneurial spirit has been engrained in the Eurofins growth journey from day one, when CEO and Founder Dr. Gilles Martin founded the company as a young entrepreneur himself in 1987, aged just 23. According to Yvoine, “the challenge is to keep this spirit as we grow, and we need to continue nurturing it to unlock remarkable potential.”

She continues, “the entrepreneurial spirit that runs through Eurofins is more than just a philosophy; it is our way of doing things. It inspires all employees of Eurofins companies to approach each day with enthusiasm, resilience, and an insatiable desire to improve. It drives our teams to be at the forefront of cutting-edge research, to develop innovative solutions for our clients, and to make a lasting difference in the world. And ultimately provides our people with fantastic and creative ways to develop personally.”

Eager to become an entrepreneur in a global network of companies? Visit our careers website now: careers.eurofins.com.