• The University
  • 29/06/2020

ASML CEO Peter Wennink to become chair of the TU/e Supervisory Board

ASML CEO Peter Wennink will become chair of the TU/e Supervisory Board as of 1 September. He succeeds Baptiest Coopmans, who is coming to the end of his second term as chair. Louise Gunning will join as a member of the Supervisory Board.

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photo Bart van Overbeeke / ASML

Peter Wennink has been a member of the TU/e Supervisory Board for over four years. He has a financial background and has worked at ASML for more than twenty years, since 2013 as CEO. According to newspaper De Volkskrant, Wennink is among the thirty most influential people in the Netherlands.

When he started as a member of Supervisory Board in 2016 Wennink said in an interview with Slash, the alumni magazine of TU/e, that he thought that it would be better if the three Dutch universities of technology - Delft, Twente and Eindhoven - would merge: "It has always amazed me that the Netherlands has three universities of technology. The research university in Aachen has more students than our three TUs combined. If we define competencies and implement specializations, we’d prevent competition. It makes sense for a businessman."

Louise Gunning has an impressive career in higher education. She was a university professor at the University of Amsterdam (UvA), was president of the UvA, and previously chaired the Academic Medical Center Amsterdam. She was also chair of the European Public Health Association (EUPHA). Currently she chairs the Supervisory Board of Royal Schiphol Group, the third-busiest airport in Europe. Gunning succeeds Jakob Fokkema, former rector of Delft University of Technology, on the Supervisory Board.

Read on below the photo.

Louise Gunning. Foto | KLM

"We are very pleased with these developments in our Supervisory Board," says Robert-Jan Smits, President of the TU/e Executive Board. "Peter Wennink, with his many years of experience as CEO of a high-tech company with a key role in the global IC industry, comes with exceptional managerial qualities. His commitment to and engagement in TU/e underline the special ties between the university and industry in Brainport. And we also cannot understate the value of Louise Gunning joining our Supervisory Board. She brings extensive managerial and international experience in the field of higher education and science."

Of great value

"We are very grateful for the efforts of Baptiest Coopmans, who was chair for eight years, and Jacob Fokkema as member of the Supervisory Board," says Smits. "Coopmans has held sway over the composition of the Supervisory Board and the Executive Board in recent years, and has tried to bring together the best team for TU/e. He was closely involved in a period in which TU/e completely restructured its education and saw the student population double. In that process, the Supervisory Board was and is of great value to the university."

As of 1 September, alongside Wennink and Gunning, the Supervisory Board will comprise Coen Teulings, former director of the Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis (CPB), and Mariëtte Hamer, chairman of the Social and Economic Council (SER). There is also a vacancy, for which the recruitment procedure is currently underway.

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