Boels Rental Promoted Four Internal Executives and Removed One Board Member to Expand Leadership.

On April 1, 2026, Boels Rental, a European equipment rental company, restructured its board of directors. Reiant Mulder stepped down as Chief Operating Officer after seven years in the role. The company simultaneously appointed four new board members, all promoted from within: Lars Reehorst took Mulder's COO role, Erik Damoiseaux became Chief Business Officer, Manon Douven became Chief Human Resources Officer, and Bob de Leeuw became Chief Technology Officer.

This was a deliberate expansion. Boels went from a smaller executive board to a wider one by creating two new C-level positions (CBO and CTO) and formalizing the CHRO as a board-level role instead of a reportable function. CEO Pierre Boels stated the restructuring was meant to "fortify our identity, reinforce our solid foundation and secure our strategic vision."

The structural consequence is important. Mulder's departure left a power vacuum at the operational level, but Boels filled it with someone (Reehorst) who knew the organization and then distributed operational oversight differently. Instead of all three business/operations/HR concerns flowing through one COO, they now flowed through four separate executives reporting to the same CEO. This meant faster decision-making in each domain, but also more lines reporting to Boels. A CEO now had four people explaining why things needed different resources. The CBO could push for commercialism. The CTO could argue for infrastructure investment. The CHRO could demand headcount. Reehorst the COO had to balance them.

What I would look for: whether the four new board members have competing agendas or work in alignment. Whether the CTO position leads to actual technology infrastructure upgrades or becomes ceremonial. Whether Mulder's seven-year tenure was intentionally ended as a way to replace the old guard without firing the person—moving him out by letting him pursue an outside opportunity.

The bigger lesson is that expanding the board from five people to eight is not just adding roles. It redistributes power among people who must cooperate, and creates new friction points where alignment can fail.