CEO Shell Dick Benschop
On Monday 4 March, we organised Dick Benschop's CEO lecture in collaboration with Study Association Stress. Dick Benschop has been the chief executive officer of Shell Netherlands since 2011.
At around 16:00, rector magnificus Ed Brinksma opened the afternoon with an introduction about KIVI NIRIA Students Twente and the previous CEO lectures. This was followed by Dick Benschop, who in over an hour told the story of his studies, career and choices therein.
It was an incredibly interesting story because Dick Benschop has not had the average career. After studying history, he worked in education for half a year. Knowing he didn't want to do that for life, he quickly quit. After a few unemployed months, he was called in to help with the autobiography of Joop den Uyl, the party leader of the PvdA. In this party, Dick Benschop had been active for some time. After this, he became one of the PvdA's campaign leaders. When the elections had a bad outcome for his party in 2002, he left politics. In the months that followed, he made contact at Shell. Here he was hired for a job in Malaysia. After several years, he moved back to the Netherlands and became CEO of Shell Netherlands.
Dick Benschop captivated the audience of over 200 with stories about his career, his conscious choices to quit a job only to be unemployed, and his story of following your heart. Do what you love! And if it gets boring: look for something else. Choose your own path.
It was a very inspiring lecture. We would like to thank Dick Benschop for participating in it. We would also like to thank Ed Brinksma, UT's rector magnificus, for his efforts as chairman of the day for this CEO lecture. Finally: Study Association Stress, thank you for the pleasant cooperation, and we hope to be able to organise something together again in the future!
We hope you enjoyed it as much as we did! We look forward to seeing you again on 6 June at the CEO lecture by Wim van der Leegte, the CEO of VDL!
Description
KIVI NIRIA Students Twente is organising a CEO cycle with the aim of stimulating and enthusing students and young engineers.
On 4 March, Dick Benschop, chief executive officer of Shell Nederland B.V. will speak.
Shell's core activities are well represented in the Netherlands: upstream, downstream, as well as innovation and technological development. Furthermore, Royal Dutch Shell's head office is located in The Hague, where a number of support functions also operate.
The upstream activities in the Netherlands are carried out by the Nederlandse Aardolie Maatschappij (NAM), which detects, taps and produces gas and oil at many hundreds of locations in the Netherlands and in the North Sea. NAM is a joint venture with Shell (50%) and ExxonMobil (50%) as shareholders. Shell is the operator of NAM. NAM's operations include the Groningen gas field; the largest onshore field in Europe.
Examples of downstream activities include the refinery in Pernis, where motor fuels and raw materials for chemicals are produced, and the chemical plants in Moerdijk and Pernis, where basic chemicals are made. Downstream also includes the sale of fuels to motorists through the approximately 500 stations in the Netherlands
16:00 Welcome by the chairman of the day Ed Brinksma, rector magnificus
16:10 Start of presentation Dick Benschop
16:45 Question round led by the chairman of the day Ed Brinksma
17:30 Closing with drinks
Speaker(s)
Drs. D.A. Benschop has been President-Director of Shell Netherlands and Vice-President Gas Market Development worldwide since May 2011. Before that, he was jointly responsible for strategy at Royal Dutch Shell. He gained his knowledge of the gas market while working for Shell Energy Europe and subsequently in Malaysia, where his responsibilities included Shell's Gas-To-Liquids activities in Bintulu from 2006 to 2009.
Dick Benschop previously gained national renown through his political work, particularly as State Secretary for Foreign Affairs in the period 1998-2002 in the second Kok government. Before joining Shell in 2003, he was briefly a member of parliament for the Labour Party. Earlier, he was, among other things, director of the party office of the PvdA and personal assistant to Joop den Uyl and Wim Kok.
The Driebergen-born Benschop (1957) studied history at the Free University in Amsterdam. Dick Benschop is married and has three children
Location
Range 1
Organiser
KIVI Students Twente
Student Association Stress
Name and contact details for information
Elfride Dijkstra