Today the Supervisory Board of Naturalis announced that Marcel Beukeboom will be appointed General Director of Naturalis Biodiversity Center as of September 8, 2025. He will succeed Edwin van Huis, who was at the helm of Naturalis for the past 14 years.
Marcel Beukeboom (52) is the current Ambassador to the Food and Agriculture Organizations of the United Nations in Rome. Prior to this, he worked as a Climate Envoy of the Netherlands for 5 years and was the figurehead of Dutch climate policy. Furthermore, for almost 25 years, he worked in diplomacy for various ministries, domestically and abroad. He gained his extensive administrative experience at the World Bank and the UN World Food Program, among others.
A connecting directorwith great commitment to climate
“We are extremely pleased to appoint Marcel Beukeboom as the new general director of Naturalis,” said Robert-Jan Smits, chairman of the Naturalis Supervisory Board. “In him we see a connecting director with strategic insight and a large (inter)national network. He has devoted his entire career at the administrative level to climate policy and with his knowledge and experience he can be of great value to the further development of Naturalis as the Dutch institute for biodiversity. We are confident that with Marcel we have accumulated a strong and connecting director.”
The Supervisory Board would like to express its great appreciation for the commitment, dedication and enormous contribution Edwin van Huis has made to Naturalis in recent years. Not only has he realized an award-winning museum in a beautiful new building, he has also embedded Naturalis on the map as the national institute for biodiversity.
Motivatedto start
Marcel Beukeboom: "Biodiversity loss is one of the biggest social issues of our time. Naturalis is at the center of society and has an important and visible role in contributing and drawing attention to the importance of biodiversity and generating knowledge about biodiversity. As a diplomat, I have always committed myself for global public interests such as climate and food security. I see my new role at Naturalis as a natural extension of this, in which scientific knowledge, dialogue and cooperation are also of great importance.”
We look forward to Marcel's arrival.
More informationnot for publication
- A high-resolution portrait photo of Marcel Beukeboom
- More information about the Supervisory Board at Naturalis
- For questions about Naturalis, you can contact the Communication & Partnerships department via +31 6 - 35 11 29 99 or Naturalis.nl/press.
