On 7 April, the annual Alumni Day took place. We would like to thank all alumni for their attendance.
This year’s theme was Time to Thrive. Frans van Houten, alumnus and CEO of Philips, held the opening speech, in which he told the attendants about the transformation of his company through the years. He told us about four lessons Philips has learned by transforming itself from a lightbulb company into the diverse, innovative company it is today. He told the attendants to find the opportunities, embrace change, and to innovate with purpose. After his opening speech, there was a Q&A with Van Houten, hosted by Jan Peter Balkenende, former Prime Minister of the Netherlands and professor in Governance, Institutions and Internationalisation at Erasmus School of Economics.
After the opening session, it was time for the workshops. There were three inspiring workshops based on the pillars of the theme: resilience, innovation and passion. During the innovation workshop, Virginia Yanquilevich, CEO of Dopper, and Ferdinand Grapperhaus Jr., CEO of PHYSEE, told about their experience with innovation in their companies. The resilience workshop was led by Bas van der Putten and Ferry Zandvliet, both public speakers. The passion workshop was given by Daphne Feller, owner of BrainExplainers, and Maaike Head, Olympic Champion in rowing.
The day continued with a social half hour, where people could interact with participants and speakers. The day ended with a closing session. The keynote speaker was HRH Mabel van Oranje, who talked about among other things her activism for against child marriage. The closing session ended with a panel discussion hosted by Jörgen Raymann, with Pauline van der Meer Mohr, Marguerite Soeteman-Reijnen, alumnus Robert Swaak, and Diederik Gommers.
It was an inspiring (online) day with great speakers! We would like to thank everyone who attended and we hope to see everyone again at the next event. Of course, a special thanks to the Economische Faculteitsvereniging Rotterdam for organising the Inspiration Days!