(Consul-general of the Netherlands for Southern India)
How do you feel the atmosphere of ISBR today at Convocation ISBR?
Tam pretty surprised and I really appreciate the warm atmosphere with which I was into bubbles coming here. I practically had no idea what I expect to hear apart from they had asked me to go from address, it was really a pleasure doing this.
How do you think India and Netherlands can adapt the best education practices from each other?
I have never worked for the Ministry of Education. I am a diplomat that worked for ministry we deal with education and we are promoting an important part of our task with promoting exchanges of students and also of staff between universities in the Netherlands and India, and I am more than happy to tell you that the number of Indian students in Netherlands now about 2000 and that’s 30% from last year and we have come up with a scholarship for Indian students its called orange tulip scholarship and that scholarship enables students also when they don’t have financial means to travel to Netherlands and continue the study for semester, an year or even the full course.
From the Ministry of Education in the Netherlands to being Consulate General of the Netherlands in Bengaluru, how has been your journey?
I was in Ministry of Education I joined the foreign ministry in 1983 so that’s quite a while ago its been 35 years of foreign ministry and I have typically fallen service carrer going for one place to another. I got three months ago the one thing that makes it more interesting than my previous postings is this my 11 th assignment overseas first time. We have decided to open a consulate office in Bangalore and that reflects the importance of relationship between India and Netherlands because nowadays we have an embassy and we have two consulates in India and of course its big country recover its 80 times the size of real country..
What are emerging challenges and opportunities for management graduates in current corporate world?
They are entering a world that is changing faster than world has ever changed before if you would take somebody from say 1945 and move to 2000, it will recognize the world although a lot of things have changed, if you move somebody from 608 to year 1200 and that’s a jump of 600 years the world would be same however the people graduating now look see the world changing in a far more rapid pace than ever before so that’s they are really facing challenges.
How important is networking in this fast paced environment?
Really facing challenges is crucial it is more important than anything else I would say its important that you have knowledge and expertise but a network as time progresses becomes more important as you get older and forget some of the things you learned at university your network only becomes more important
How unique was your India experience? Would you like to share some memories?
Some modesty is in place here because I only got to India three months ago, so I still have a lot of traveling to do, we cover the entire southern part of India so there’s not only a connection occur it also a family now to Andhra Pradesh, Telengana and I still have to visit many places. Comparing one posting to another is difficult but always officers at diplomats positions keep getting postings and its impossible to answer that question because every country has things to offer that no other country can offer, what I can tell you is that I liked to open the office here because I have worked with Indian colleagues before of course, it is there have many things going for that one of the nice things about India is that everybody speaks English, that helps us normally and the opening office is a very rewarding experience in itself.
What advice would you like to give graduating student of ISBR?
In their life take opportunity to go out and “Do What you want to do because you can do it”