Benelux

The Benelux Kellogg Alumni Club has a couple specific characteristics. Currently we are serving three different countries — Belgium, Netherlands and Luxembourg — which is allowed by the short distances within these countries and which enables us to enjoy an enlarged network of peers. The other distinctive characteristic of our club is that because these three countries host many European headquarters of multinationals and institutions, we have a large, rotating proportion of expatriots (40 percent) in our membership base.

The club has been revitalized in 2001, following a major initiative to identify and update information of our constituency. This effort has enabled us to mobilize about 70 alumni active in the Benelux around a regular stream that contribute in different ways to build a dynamic community.

The club has hosted a number of events recently, and continues to develop programming for the entire year. Please visit our club’s Web site, or contact Philippe Laval at plaval1995@kellogg.northwestern.edu for more information.

Jan. 4, New Year TG and presentation to prospective applicants.

The Club started the year in dynamic fashion with a new event. In collaboration with MBA2U and the Brussels office of McKinsey, we hosted about 60 prospective Kellogg School applicants. Because of the massive demand we organized two separate presentations each followed by a Q&A session and a reception where prospectives had a chance to chat informally with Kellogg alumni and current students.

The feedback from the prospective students was tremendously positive. They appreciated the new insights provided by this event as this time it was not an initiative from the school but from its current and former students. The team of a dozen Kelloggians enjoyed this interaction with the applicants who were so enthusiastic that we lost track of time and were reminded at 2200h we had to stop… temporarily as we closed the night at a nearby restaurant. Special thanks to Marc Verhaeren, second-year Kellogg student, for taking the lead in organizing the event, and to Philippe Mauchard of McKinsey and MBA2U for the excellent sponsorship. The event will be repeated next year and this time Miriam Claes will be the second-year student taking the lead. A final note to ask Kellogg alumni to kindly sign up with Kazzie Brown of

Admissions at kazzieb@kellogg.northwestern.edu as interviewers to help us deal with the dramatic increase of applicants this year.

Jan. 23, introduction of the new Web site — and wine tasting

This event was organized by the French Club in Paris. We presented the newly designed and developed European Web site dedicated to alumni in Europe, at La Terrasse, 30, rue Galilée, 75016. This event was followed by a very special wine tasting event with Chateauonline.com, featuring star Sommelier Jean-Michel Deluc.

Feb. 5, Super Bowl XXXVI and Super Bowl commercials

Bud, pizza and pretzels (not for you, W!). Alumni got together to watch the game and the special commercials as if we were in the States, in live condition but at decent hours, with kick-off at 1900

Feb. 7 speaker event in Amsterdam

This was the first event of 2002 that the Kellogg Benelux Alumni Club organized specifically for the Netherlands’ chapter. On Feb. 7 we held an informal social evening in Amsterdam.With the goal of not only trying rebuild, create and strengthen personal as well as professional ties within the Kellogg alumni community but also to other leading U.S. MBA alumni, we planned this event together with the Wharton Alumni Club of the Netherlands. Jan-Michiel Hessels (Wharton ’69), former CEO of Vendex International and currently chairman of the supervisory board of Euronext (Amsterdam, Paris, Brussels exchange) accepted our invitation to be the speaker for this evening. The topic was Euronext and its strategy in Europe. Recent developments like the Euronext merger in Portugal and its bid on London’s Option Exchange LIFFE provided fuel for an interesting discussion.