GETTING TO KNOW CHARLENE
DE CARVALHO-HEINEKEN
HEINEKEN AS A WAY OF LIFE
Inspiration
Following the death of her father, Alfred Heineken, the family
shares passed to Charlene de Carvalho-Heineken. She will
continue to hold the shares in the same tradition as her father.
"I see Heineken not as an inheritance but as the legacy of a
company. As a family, we share the ambitions and aspirations of
this business. We are part of its past, present and future."
Although it would probably be going too far to suggest that
Charlene (who was born in 1954) was brought up on beer, her
father did involve her in the brewery from a very early age. She
experienced this as an inspiration rather than as a pressure. "Of
course, we talked a lot about the brewery at home, it was simply
a part of our lives," she says. "When Zoeterwoude was being built,
my father often took me to the site on Sundays. He was extremely
proud of it. When I was older, I went with him to Heineken events,
not just for the social side, but to learn and to understand the
company philosophy. Of course, my father also took me to cafes
and restaurants. That's where I witnessed his terrific taste and
eye for detail. He never missed a thing: ashtrays, beer mats,
glasses, and he checked with the landlord or landlady if there was
anything else they needed."
Despite his great attachment to the brewery, Charlene's father
never pushed her into the business. "His passion and ambition
were an inspiration to me. Although we often talked about the
brewery, he gave me the freedom to build my own life." Which
she did. Charlene went to secretarial college for a year before
