A.I.S.E. aisbl is the International Association for Soaps, Detergents and Maintenance Products. Based in Brussels, it has been the voice of the industry to EU regulators for over 65 years. Its membership consists of 29 national associations across Europe, 18 corporate members and 13 value chain partners. Through this extensive network, A.I.S.E. aisbl represents over 900 companies supplying household and professional cleaning products and services across Europe.

The international association has a long history in leading voluntary industry initiatives that focus on sustainable design, manufacturing and consumption, product safety and safe use of products by consumers and professional customers. Its mission is to enable its industry to succeed by promoting and shaping a favourable operating framework. Moreover, the vision of the industry in Europe is "A prospering cleaning and hygiene industry which is a role model for serving society in an innovative and sustainable way."

A.I.S.E. aisbl seeks to fulfill its mission by serving its members in developing and representing their industry perspective with one voice to European policy makers, creating and driving industry initiative, engaging with value-chain partners and other key stakeholders and leveraging the expertise and diversity of the network of national associations and companies.

Susanne Zänker is the Director General of A.I.S.E. aisbl, Christèle Baier oversees the finance, HR management, supervision of office management and the coordination of IT related matters and Luca Conti is the Legal and Public Affairs Manager. The three of them have taken part in some of FAIB webinars and are the voices behind this interview.

A.I.S.E. aisbl has been a member of the FAIB for at least 15 years already! They joined because the FAIB was and remains to this day a very useful source of information for international associations (INPA) in Belgium.

“We particularly appreciate the seminars on laws and taxes governing INPAs and also some of the more recent workshops on soft skills. We think that the timing and cost for those services are absolutely fair, the webinars are of good quality and provide a good overview of the key points. On top of that, if relevant and needed, it is easy to connect to the speakers afterwards if participants wish to do so.”

To finish this introduction, their favourite thing about working in Belgium is that Belgian people have a great sense of humor, a relaxed way of interacting with others and the way of often finding “Belgian compromises” to issues. They also very much like the very dynamic Belgian social life, including for children. Brussels is an international city with an interesting cultural scene, all the while remaining “human sized” and green.

www.aise.eu