Speakers
Mr. Paul Hohnen Sustainability Strategies, Amsterdam.
Moderator of this symposium
Paul Hohnen is an Amsterdam-based independent expert on sustainable development and corporate responsibility. He has been closely involved in the development of a range of related global standards and instruments, including the UN Global Compact, the (draft) ISO 26000 Social Responsibility Standard, and the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI). Paul was the first-ever independent facilitator of the UN Commission on Sustainable Development, and has facilitated a range of high-level international conferences for UN bodies, Chatham House, business and NGOs.
He is an Associate Fellow of the Royal Institute for International Affairs, is a Special Adviser to the UN Global Compact, a Special Advisor to the GRI, and a Senior Consultant to the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD).
Dr. Henk Rijckborst Health Affairs Director,
Heineken International
Henk Rijckborst is a medical doctor and is Health Affairs Director with Heineken International, based at the Heineken Group headquarters in Amsterdam.
Before joining Heineken as principal medical advisor in 1983, Henk worked as an occupational health officer for a Unilever subsidiary in the Netherlands for more than eight years (1975-1983).
Henk is a specialist in occupational medicine and public health and represents Heineken International in the Board of the Global Business Council of HIV/AIDS. He has built up great experience in a wide range of health projects in Central Africa since 1985. Henk has been active as (international) group medical advisor Sub-Saharan Africa since 1986. Heineken employs more than 30 full-time physicians, of whom 15 in African operating companies. Heineken provides complete care packages for more than 30,000 people in Africa (employees and their dependents).
Since August 2001, when HIV treatment became part of these medical packages, Henk has been responsible for the Heineken HIV/AIDS HAART treatment programme in several Heineken operating companies in Africa. Other important programmes are focused on tuberculosis and malaria (prevention and treatment).
Dr. Peter Piot UNAIDS Executive Director,
Under Secretary-General of the United Nations
Executive Director of UNAIDS since its creation in 1995 and Under Secretary-General of the United Nations, Dr. Peter Piot comes from a distinguished academic and scientific career focusing on AIDS and women's health in the developing world.
Drawing on his skills as a scientist, manager and activist, Dr. Piot has challenged world leaders to view AIDS in the context of social and economic development as well as security.
Under his leadership, UNAIDS has become the chief advocate for worldwide action against AIDS. It has brought together ten organizations of the United Nations system around a common agenda on AIDS, spearheading UN reform.
Dr. Piot earned a medical degree from the University of Ghent, a Ph.D. in Microbiology from the University of Antwerp, Belgium, and was a Senior Fellow at the University of Washington in Seattle. After graduating from medical school, Dr. Piot co-discovered the Ebola virus in Zaire in 1976.
In the 1980s Dr. Piot launched and expanded a series of collaborative projects in Africa, in Burundi, Côte d’Ivoi, Kenya, Tanzania and Zaire. Project SIDA in Kinshasa, Zaire, was the first international project on AIDS in Africa and is widely acknowledged as having provided the foundations of our understanding of HIV infection in Africa. He was a professor of microbiology and of public health at the Institute of Tropical Medicine, in Antwerp, and the Universities of Nairobi, Brussels and Lausanne.
In 1992, Dr. Piot joined the Global Programme on AIDS of the World Health Organization, in Geneva, as Associate Director.
Prof. Joep M.A. Lange Executive Director, Center for Poverty-related Communicable Diseases,
Academic Medical Centre, University of Amsterdam.
Joep Lange is a clinical researcher from the Netherlands, who has made major contributions to advancing the treatment and prevention of HIV infection in both the developed and developing world. He is currently professor of Medicine at the Academic Medical Center, University of Amsterdam, and Director of the National AIDS Therapy Evaluation Centre.
He is a former president of the International AIDS Society (2002-2004). From 1992-1995 he served as Chief Clinical Research and Drug Development at the Global Programme on AIDS, World Health Organization in Geneva. In 2000, he founded the PharmAccess Foundation, a not-for-profit organisation based in Amsterdam, which aims to improve access to HIV/AIDS therapy and general health care in developing countries. Professor Lange is also the Scientific Director of HIV[e]Ducation, an online learning system for medical doctors, nurses and counsellors working with HIV-positive people.
Joep Lange is founding editor of the academic journal Antiviral Therapy.
Mr. Peter Lacy Executive Director of the European Academy of Business in Society (EABIS)
Senior Advisor at McKinsey & Company
Peter became the first Executive Director of EABIS in 2003 after its launch by Unilever, Shell, Microsoft, J&J and IBM, in partnership with Europe’s leading business schools and the EU Commission, to generate knowledge and insight on business in society. He is responsible for leading EABIS’ executive activities, its programmes, and its growing network of 80 institutions in 19 countries on 4 continents, as well as a small, but vibrant and dedicated team in Brussels, comprising 9 nationalities.
He has advised Fortune 500 companies on business in society issues and sits on boards and advisory councils for organisations such as the EU Commission Stakeholder Forum, the EU Alliance on CSR, AccountAbility, Tomorrow’s Global Company Inquiry, UN Principles for Responsible Management Education, AIESEC, and the journals of Corporate Governance and Corporate Citizenship.
Peter is a strategy consultant by background and worked previously in the strategy divisions of Andersen Consulting and Accenture, primarily with oil and gas industry clients. He also had a brief spell in the dotcom industry with lastminute.com and lastorders.com.
Peter graduated from the University of Nottingham with 1st Class Hons in Politics and received the University, Politics and Union prizes. He has also completed executive courses with INSEAD, Cranfield and Harvard.
Mr. Bert Koenders Minister for Development Cooperation, the Netherlands
Albert Gerard (Bert) Koenders was born in Arnhem on 28 May 1958.
He studied political science at the VU University, Amsterdam (sitting his ‘kandidaats’ examination in 1978) and political and social sciences at the University of Amsterdam (graduating in 1983). He received an MA from Johns Hopkins University, after studying at the School of Advanced International Studies in Bologna and Washington DC from 1979 to 1981.
Mr Koenders worked from 1983 to 1992 as a personal assistant to several members of the House of Representatives of the States General and as coordinating foreign policy assistant for the parliamentary Labour Party. From 1984 he was also part-time adjunct professor of international relations at Webster University in Leiden, and from 1987 part-time consultant and European director of Parliamentarians for Global Action in New York. From 1993 to 1994 he was the European staff member and political advisor to the Special Representative of the Secretary-General of the UN, working in Mozambique, South Africa and Mexico. He was subsequently principal administrator of the policy planning staff of the Directorate-General for external relations, conflict prevention and European Union enlargement at the European Commission in Brussels until 1997.
Since 1997, Mr Koenders has been a member of the House of Representatives of the States General. From 2000 to 2002 he was also visiting professor of international relations at Johns Hopkins University in Bologna.
He has held numerous positions, including member of the Governing Council of the Society for International Development, first deputy chairman of the Netherlands Atlantic Association, member of the Supervisory Council of the Institute for Multiparty Democracy, president of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, member of the French-Dutch Cooperation Council, chairman of the Steering Committee of the East-West Parliamentary Practice Project and chair of the board of the Parliamentary Network on the World Bank.
On 22 February 2007 Mr Koenders was appointed Minister for Development Cooperation in the fourth Balkenende government.
Mr. Jean-François van BoxmeerChairman/CEO Heineken N.V.
Jean-François van Boxmeer graduated in 1984 by obtaining his Master’s Degree in Economics at the Facultés Universitaires Notre Dame de la Paix S.J., Namur, Belgium.
He joined Heineken in 1984 and has held various management positions in Rwanda (Sales and Marketing Manager), Democratic Republic of Congo (General Manager), Poland (Vice-President and General Manager) and Italy (General Manager).
In 2001, he was appointed member of the Executive Board of Heineken N.V. and in October 2005 he became Chairman/CEO.