Education

After studying mathematics and physics at the University of Amsterdam and a PhD in elementary particle physics, we switched to technology in the financial sector. In a period of 12 years he was involved in the introduction of new technologies and the development of strategy. This resulted in an appointment as extraordinary professor at the Free University of Amsterdam, an appointment as researcher at the Henley Business School and an appointment as visiting professor at the Beijing Institute of Technology. In addition, we worked through our own companies in the Netherlands and the Philippines on the design and implementation of decentralized systems based on personal data. After reaching retirement age five years active in the social domain in setting up a training for customer managers and research into the effectiveness of matching to work. This has resulted in the development of a new matching model and the development of a decentralized application.

 Alex van den Doel is responsible for Aon Global Risk Consulting (Benelux) and COT – Institute for Crisis-, Safety and Security Management. He also serves as a member of the Aon Global Risk Consulting Leadership team for Europe, Middle East & Africa (EMEA).

Core areas of expertise include: Enterprise Risk Management, Cyber Risk, Crisis Management, Captive and Insurance Company Consulting and Management, Actuarial services, Financial Analytics, Solvency II and Alternative Risk Transfer (Capital markets solution for insurance risks and weather derivatives).

Prior to joining Aon, Alex worked five years for ING Investment Management in The Hague and Atlanta focusing on US equities as a senior analyst and portfolio manager.

Alex holds a master's degree from Erasmus University of Rotterdam in (Financial) Business Economics, is a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA – European) and finished management development programmes at INSEAD (International Executive Programme Fontainebleau – Singapore) and Harvard Business School (Leading Professional Services Firms).

Aon Global Risk Consulting is a leading global consulting firm for risk advisory services to multinationals and large corporates with the following main practices: (Enterprise) Risk Management, Crisis Management, Business Continuity Management, Cyber Risk, Actuarial and Analytics, Risk Finance & Insurance Company advisory, Captive & Insurance Company Management and Interim Risk & Insurance Management. 

Robert is the owner of Naris, the specialist in GRC software. He is also a lecturer in strategic risk management at the University of Twente, VU University, NBA, VNG, SBO and the National Academy.

For more than 20 years, he has been helping organisations to set up and actually implement integrated risk management.

Robert gets energy from speaking to employees and management teams and communicating his knowledge interactively.

Other activities

• CEO Lindyn BV. (HSSE & Risk management)
• Co. Founder, Lecturer, learning coach at TU-Delft mastercourse in integrale Veiligheid (Hazard Risk)
• Member Steeringgroup hazard/Risk (Integrale Veiligheid) ministry OCW education, 1e & 2e fase
• Lecturer with PHOV, Post graduate safety engineering education
• Management) with TripleSmanagement.
• Lecturer & Initiator of an int. mastercourse in Nuclear Security.
• Student coach of the master degree education security management at their professional asignment
• Autor Riskmanagement & Security articles

From a background of lawenforcement and aviation security at Schiphol Airport, and fraude investigation services I gained knowledge by education, research and experience in operational risk, security, safety, information security BCM and crisis management. Implementing an integrated form of hazard risk management aligned with organizational goals within (major) organisations is my primary goal now .

An interesting extension of my riskmanagement involvement is nucleair security.

Specialties: Switching between professional risk related domains on strategic, tactical and operational level, detecting and analyses of dilemma's in risk.

Security management, Safety management, Risk management, crisis management, consulting, problem analyses, trooble shooting. Interim management 

Wijnand van den Brink has been a member of the Executive Board of Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences since 1 October 2017. After his heao propaedeutic year, he obtained the first degree in economics and statistics and he also graduated in the Master's in Educational Management.

After having worked for a number of years at the benefit agency, the GAK, he switched to education in 1989. His educational career started as a teacher at Albeda Rotterdam. During this period, he wrote two study books for the International Wholesale Trade department. Wijnand van den Brink has been working at the Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences since 1999, first as a lecturer in Economics and from 2000 as education manager of the Business Economics programme. From 2004 he held the position of institute director at the Institute for Financial Management and from 2011 at the Institute for the Built Environment. During his directorship at the Institute for Financial Management, he was involved in the PhD trajectory of one of the lecturers on the subject of risk management. In his position as director at the Institute for the Built Environment, he focused more on quality assurance issues and sustainability. In his current position, he has been strongly involved in the process of accreditation of the University of Applied Sciences as part of the Integral Quality Assurance Test (ITK).

Long experience in actuarial work, both in education and actuarial practice. Enjoy solving risk modeling problems, designing training concepts, and teaching students or clients. Specialties: reserving, capital, pricing, reinsurance, education.

The current pandemic demands a lot of resilience both from the organisation and from us as individuals. Whereas it usually takes a long time to make large-scale changes, massive changes are now being made to education in an extremely short time. The most important lesson for our Twente Business Administration programmes was that existing disparities in the quality of the education became more apparent, but that mutual understanding really helped in overcoming challenges. The social aspect of education is still a concern during the pandemic, however. Aside from concerns about student and employee wellbeing, there is simply a lack of accidental meetings and interactions that would normally happen after classes and in the corridors. A more detailed reflection on the UT business administration education provided in the first few months of the coronavirus pandemic can be found in the Dutch Journal for Higher Education (in Dutch). At the moment, we have seen that facilitating small-scale meetings that follow the guidelines is indeed having a very positive effect on our students. Nonetheless, the uncertainty surrounding the virus demands a great deal of creativity and adaptability.

Bio:
Dr Michel Ehrenhard is an Associate Professor of Strategic Entrepreneurship in the NIKOS department of the University of Twente. His research deals with entrepreneurial leadership during technology-induced change. He is also the programme director of the Bachelor’s and Master’s in (International) Business Administration and affiliated with the Leadership Center, University of Texas at Dallas.

Like many other people, I manage risks with resilience every day. The difference is that this year in my daily work as program manager cyber security within part-time vocational education at The Hague University of Applied Sciences, after Thursday 12 March 2020, I had to deal with a large number of situations that were new to me. In these situations, I had to make well-considered decisions at a fast pace and take actions that deviated in part from the period before the corona era.

On the one hand, I deal with possible threats as well as possible, in which risk mitigation solutions and monitoring are important. This is certainly partly due to corona, but I am also already preparing for risk management in the longer term.

On the other hand, I have also taken advantage of many opportunities that have arisen. The crisis forced me, like everyone else, to get out of my comfort zone. This started with the rapid roll-out of digital education. After installing and managing the Microsoft Teams environment, hybrid education followed with live stream, table microphones and blended learning. It is nice to experience the gratitude of the students and to receive compliments about the flexibility and improvisation because all lectures continued as usual. It is also great that it has been possible to maintain the quality of education and services.

Bio:
Since 1 January 2019, I have been working as a Cyber Security & Risk Management Program Manager at The Hague Graduate School, which facilitates part-time education at The Hague University of Applied Sciences. In this position I am responsible for the following courses:

•  Master Risk Management (MSc),
•  Master Cyber Security Engineering (MSc),
•  Post HBO Register Training Risk Management,
•  Post HBO Cyber Security Management.

In addition to collaborating within my work environment, I also exchange knowledge within the Dutch Risk Management Association, where I am a board member and secretary.

The coronavirus crisis has helped accelerate the development of digital education at both universities and universities of applied science. Institutes of higher education have had to implement digital education in a very short period of time; under normal circumstances, this would have taken a lot longer.

Bio:
As an integral safety specialist, I help develop solutions to complex and/or problematic situations. In my role as safety adviser, I dedicate myself to making the working and learning environment as safe as possible for our students and staff.

The education sector has been hit hard by Covid-19. It is not only the educational process that has been affected: facility services (housing and cleaning), communication departments and ICT departments are also under great pressure. As on-site education, working from home and communication about the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment’s (RIVM) measures demand more from the organisation now than pre-Covid, measures are focused more on crisis management rather than risk management.

In addition to the impact on the 'now', Covid is also having an impact on the future. This impact poses a particular threat to 'traditional' educational institutions. The lower intake of students – especially international students – is having consequences for institutions’ income. The question is whether the situation will improve, and how long recovery will take. The risk is that the 'boost' that Covid has given to distance learning will threaten the traditional educational model. Blended learning is currently the only possible education model, and there is a high chance that, in a 'post-Corona' world, many current and prospective students will see this model as a real option for their education. This puts pressure on tuition fees and creates space for competitors, as the unique selling point of the academic environment may lose some of its value. Dealing with this will require resilience and risk management, with a focus on the balance between services, investments and market share.

Bio:
My name is Johan Dijkstra. I have worked in a range of financial positions at the University of Twente since 2007, and in 2018 I took on my current role as a policy adviser in the area of externally financed projects. This satisfying position is very varied and brings me into contact with virtually every aspect of operations at the university. My personal goal is to inject more risk management into those operations.

Risk and managing it is something that everyone has to deal with on a daily basis. Feeling safe is something that is important to everyone, so the urge is also to reduce the risks as much as possible. The current crisis places an extra emphasis on this, something that used to be the most normal thing in the world suddenly becomes a risk. As a result of the crisis, managing the risk of remaining safe becomes a priority. All kinds of things are being done to reduce the risk, which means that the risks created by the measures are often forgotten.

For the education sector, the crisis is having a particular impact on the prioritisation of risks, where the objective is very clear: 'Education must continue'. The resilience is also clearly visible, physical lessons were scrapped and in no time the teacher was teaching in front of the camera.

Bio:

After studying Chemical Engineering, I started as a Chemical Engineering Instructor at the Institute for Life Sciences and Chemistry at Utrecht University of Applied Sciences. Here I combine my passion of teaching and experimental work. As a Chemical Technologist I enjoy bringing chemical technology into everyday life, partly because of this I started brewing beer during my studies. A biotechnological process in which there are so many possibilities from small to large scale.

"I look to the left, then to the right and again to the left. So don't cross over blindly and on autopilot. Stay alert. You have to be prepared to find a burning five-legged horse in the meadow. And as an organization you are ready to act on that. In essence, risk management for me is about that. And what's more, it's about the healthy balance between control and trust. Risk management systems should never get in the way and are part of daily operations. Preferably unconsciously competent or internalized. Have you often had to explain that risk management is necessary and not boring? That you are wondering why your Board of Directors the conversation about this is postponed or looks away? Ask if they go for success and want to seize all opportunities, preferably with an appealing example and tell that with sufficient attention to risk management that goal can be achieved. Then you have their attention.

Bio:

Mieke van den Berg (54) has been a member of the Executive Board of Inholland University of Applied Sciences since 1 February 2020. She studied business economics/accountancy at the University of Groningen. During her career, she has worked on risk management in various ways.

Members of the Executive Boards of various educational institutions

Experts (safety, security and risk management) within the education sector

A summary of lessons surrounding the crisis, trends, developments, risks + strategy      

Discussion of online participants’ questions (in the chat)