Alexander Rinnooy Kan

Alexander Rinnooy Kan  link (Mathematician, businessman)
Born	Alexander Hendrik George Rinnooy Kan 5 October 1949 Scheveningen, Netherlands
Nationality	Dutch
Alma mater	Leiden University, University of Amsterdam
Dutch politician, businessman and mathematician

Alexander Hendrik George Rinnooy Kan is a Dutch politician, businessman and mathematician who attended the 2010 Bilderberg meeting.

Education

Rinnooy Kan grew up in The Hague. He graduated in mathematics at Leiden University in 1972. The same year, he also obtained a degree in econometrics from the University of Amsterdam. In 1972–1973, he worked as a mathematician at Spectrum Encyclopedia. From 1973 until 1977, he was a scientific employee in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics at Delft University of Technology (then called the Delft Technical College). In 1976, he obtained a PhD in mathematics at the University of Amsterdam.

Career

In 1977, he went to the Erasmus University Rotterdam, where he became a full Professor in Operations Research in 1980 at the age of 30. In 1983, he was appointed head of the Econometric Institute and in 1986 rector magnificus of the university. In the meantime, he was visiting professor at the University of California, Berkeley and MIT, among others.

From 1991 until 1996, he was president of the employers federation VNO and (after the merger with NCW) of the VNO-NCW. Between 1996 and 2006, Rinnooy Kan was a member of the board of directors of ING Group, where he was responsible for the Asian branch. He was a member of the Netherlands Innovation Platform until the platform was dissolved in 2010.

From 2006 until 2012, he was a crown-appointed member and Chairman of the Social and Economic Council (SER). During his farewell party at the SER he was appointed Commander in the Order of the Netherlands Lion. The Dutch newspaper de Volkskrant named him the most influential person in the Netherlands in 2007, 2008 and 2009.

On 9 June 2015, he became a member of the Senate on behalf of the Democrats 66 party. He did not seek reelection to the upper chamber in 2019; his term ended on 11 June 2019.