{"id":106859,"date":"2019-12-05T12:22:23","date_gmt":"2019-12-05T11:22:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.erasmusmagazine.nl\/en\/?p=106859"},"modified":"2025-12-19T11:24:35","modified_gmt":"2025-12-19T10:24:35","slug":"as-president-of-the-executive-board-you-want-to-give-others-room-for-manoeuvre-but-you-have-to-stay-on-track","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.erasmusmagazine.nl\/en\/2019\/12\/05\/as-president-of-the-executive-board-you-want-to-give-others-room-for-manoeuvre-but-you-have-to-stay-on-track\/","title":{"rendered":"‘As President of the Executive Board you want to give others room for manoeuvre, but you have to stay on track’"},"content":{"rendered":"

The 1st<\/sup> of December saw the end of Kristel Baele\u2019s tenure as President of Erasmus University\u2019s Executive Board, a position she held for four years. Her departure did not come as a surprise, as she had announced in July that she had decided, \u2018in close consultation\u2019 with the Supervisory Board, not to aspire to a second term. Hans Smits, a former member of the Supervisory Board, will serve as her successor for the time being. EM<\/em> talked to Baele on her final day on the job.<\/p>\n

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Kristel Baele.<\/span><\/p>

\n\t\n\n<\/svg>\n<\/span>\n\tImage by:<\/span>\n\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tRonald van den Heerik<\/a>\t\t\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>

I\u2019m sure you\u2019ve had some long working days these last few weeks. What were they like?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d made up my mind beforehand that I was going to take it easy, but obviously, that didn\u2019t happen. Things were hectic. I obviously had to finalise a few projects and leave things in good order. And I had to draw up a handover folder for Hans Smits, so as to allow him to get off to go a good start. And plenty of people swung by to ask for words of wisdom or advice, or simply to say goodbye.\u201d<\/p>\n

What kind of words of wisdom are we talking about?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cOh, anything, really: people asking me for career advice, or people asking for advice on some complicated issue. I ended up being rather busy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Looking back on the past four years, what are your fondest memories?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cThe process we used to develop the new strategy. I made a conscious decision to do it together with the organisation. \u2018Co-creation\u2019 it\u2019s called these days. That was very inspiring, and I think it resulted in a strategy that is widely endorsed and very \u2018now\u2019. We owe the fact that sustainability became such a huge part of the strategy to students and a few young academics. It mattered a lot to them, and they had good arguments in support of their ambitions.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe second thing I cherish fond memories of is diversity and inclusiveness. That\u2019s a tough subject that took us a lot of time. We had to do a lot of talking to people about where the bottlenecks were located and what we could do to get rid of them. I think we\u2019ve made a few permanent changes. We didn\u2019t have much of a [diversity and inclusiveness] policy before I came, and now we\u2019re on our second Chief Diversity Officer [Semiha Denkta\u015f \u2013 ed.]!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\t

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