Richard Plugge

About Richard Plugge

Richard Plugge is the director/owner of Team Visma | Lease a Bike, the most successful cycling team in the world. With 160 employees and a multi-million budget, Team Visma | Lease a Bike is one of the largest sports companies in the Netherlands.

In 2022, the team – which at that time was named Team Jumbo-Visma – claimed the yellow jersey in the Tour de France. The World Tour team finished that year at the top of the UCI ranking. In 2023, Team Jumbo-Visma made sports history again by winning all three Grand Tours in the same season: in May, Primoz Roglic won the Giro d’Italia, in July, Jonas Vingegaard won the Tour de France for the second time, and in September, American Sepp Kuss took home the red jersey in the Vuelta d ‘España. This trilogy is unique in the cycling world. No other team has achieved this before.

At Visma | Lease Bike, innovation, knowledge sharing, talent development, and collaboration are central. Not only in sports but also in commercial and communicative aspects. A new top sports culture prevails, which, thanks to great dedication, development, and athletic achievements, embodies ‘Dutch pride’ as an important core value. In his presentation, Richard draws the connection between top sports and businesses by discussing dreams with a deadline, culture, vision, commitment, personal growth, and having the right people in the right places.

The road to this success was long. In 2013, Richard took on the challenge to restart the Rabobank cycling team. After Rabobank pulled the plug on the eponymous cycling team at the end of 2012, Richard took over the BV. Midway through the first year, in 2013, Belkin became the new title sponsor. A year and a half later, in 2015, the Dutch Lotto and Jumbo supermarkets became the new sponsors of this team, and the collaboration with the skating team of Jac Orie began, which included Thomas Krol, Patrick Roest, Antoinnette de Jong, and Sven Kramer. This successful collaboration ended on December 31, 2023, when both sports teams went their separate ways.

After taking over the Rabobank team, several years of restructuring and reorganizing followed. Starting from 2015/2016, a new way of working, coaching, and training was implemented, and significant changes were made to the business model. This makes the team an example for the business world. Where a course change is needed, vision, dedication, a strong, shared culture, tough choices, and commitment are essential.

Richard Plugge is highly experienced as a (change) manager. He started his career after school as a freelance journalist and worked for various magazines, newspapers, and corporate publications. This led to the request in 1999 to revitalize the magazine ‘Fiets’. He did this through a formula change that led to great successes for the title. The addition of FietsActief and Procycling to the portfolio further strengthened the cycling division of the publishing house. In 2007, he was asked to do the same for the magazine Sportweek, where he collaborated with publisher Jan Paul de Wildt. The goal was to become the leading sports publishing house in the Netherlands. This goal was achieved, among other things, by adjusting the policy. Sportweek was merged with NU.nl to form NUSport.nl. When Richard left in 2012, NUsport.nl was the largest sports site in the Netherlands. By then, Richard had also been involved in the founding of hockey.nl and schaatsen.nl. From Sanoma Publishers, Richard Plugge made the transition to the Rabobank cycling team in early 2012 before taking over the team.

Under Plugge’s leadership, the organization of Team Visma | Lease a Bike made significant strides. The ultimate reward came in 2022: the team won the yellow, green, and polka dot jerseys in the Tour de France. Those who thought it couldn’t get any better were mistaken. A year later, the team won the overall classification of the Tour de France, the Giro d’Italia, and the Vuelta. The Grand Tour Trilogy was complete. In the Vuelta, the top 3 was also entirely composed of riders from Plugge’s team. Another unique achievement.