Bernard Wientjes

Bernard Wientjes (1943) is the former head of the Dutch business and employers’ organization VNO-NCW (May 2005 – June 2014). Four times in a row the Dutch newspaper Volkskrant selected him as the most influential Dutchman. In his function as Chairman of the VNO-NCW, Mr. Wientjes was the Vice-Chair of the Social-Economic Council, a major economic advisory council of the Dutch government.

Since September 2014 Mr. Wientjes is working as a professor on Entrepreneurship & Leadership at the University of Utrecht. In addition, Mr. Wientjes is the Chair of the Rijksmuseum Fund, member of the Board of Trustees of the Drents Museum, member of the Advisory Board of the Dordrecht Museum, as well as board member of the Alzheimer Center at the VU University Hospital in Amsterdam. As of 1 May 2015 he has been chairman of the Supervisory Board of  KPMG.

Mr. Wientjes’ business career started in 1969 when he took over his family business and succeeded in expanding it to a group of companies with a strong position on the market for plastic products. As one of the first in Europe, he stared a business that produced bathroom products out of plastic in 1970. After managing to obtain a leading market position, Mr. Wientjes sold it in 1999 to the German Villeroy&Boch and joined its Board of Directors.