Benelux

Last year was a milestone year for the club, as it was the first in which, backed by a strong leadership board, we achieved a continuous stream of activities covering all our key goals. To name a few: We increased our constituency to 84 alumni, put a strong seven-person board in place, organized seven events, including a cocktail and dinner party in honor of Dean Emeritus Donald P. Jacobs, and hosted Professor James Conley as a guest speaker. We also helped launch a European Web site and generated local media coverage around the Jacobs visit and Kellogg's No. 1 ranking in BusinessWeek.

Our biggest success, though, has been the strong increase of involvement, with most of you attending at least one of the events last year. Another boost has been the strong commitment of Kellogg to extend its leadership and recognition in Europe. As you will read in Rachel's account, a heavy Kellogg contingent lead by Dean Dipak Jain met with European alumni in London to coordinate these new initiatives, the most spectacular being the project to open a Kellogg-only European campus.

Since we are the world's top business school, we need to raise the bar further for our club in 2003. One initiative is to have the yearly membership fee apply to everyone. This will help us in organizing even more attractive events in 2003. A provisionary calendar of events includes hosting Dean Jacobs and the Europe GIM trip at the U.S. ambassador's in March, an MBA Update with Professor Philip Kotler in May and many other events.

Best, Philippe Laval '95