Van de Velde: “I am proud to be asked to lead this great School for another four years. This continuity will help us to go on with the strategy that we started in 2012, and maintain our position as an established international business school, firmly rooted in the corporate world and in society.”
The School’s ‘RSM 3.0’ strategy focuses on enhancing its reputation and ensuring financial viability. It presents a unique value proposition and educational experience which takes into account innovations and current – as well as future – trends in business, said the Dean.
As Van de Velde explained, a fast-changing environment requires business schools to be adaptive and flexible, so new elements will be added to RSM’s 3.0 strategy.
He continued: “As a research-based business school we will keep our solid academic foundation, while enhancing the impact and relevance of our research and making our academic results more accessible for business and society as well as for academia. Obviously we will continue to strengthen our corporate and alumni network, which is a critical asset for our School.” He outlined three key points.
A first refinement, says Van de Velde, is to make RSM one of the best business schools at which to work. “Human capital is the foundation for any strategy’s execution, and certainly critical for realising our goals,” he commented.
A second element is to take internationalisation to the next level. Van de Velde revealed that RSM is preparing to open an office in Chengdu in China in June and will offer an EMBA degree programme in Germany, next year.
The third element is to feature the School’s wide knowledge of supply chain management (logistics, transportation, distribution, port management) as an important and distinctive specialisation.
Van de Velde concludes: “I very much look forward to continuing to work with all our stakeholders on our strategy. By co-operating across functions and by applying our strengths, we will continue to fulfil our mission of being a leading international business school that creates, disseminates, and applies managerial knowledge in a sustainable and respectful way. Together, we will successfully take RSM into 2018 and beyond, to our 50th anniversary in 2020.”
Steef van de Velde (1960) has been Dean of RSM since 2011, and is Professor of Operations Management & Technology. He holds an MSc in Econometrics from Erasmus School of Economics, and a PhD in Mathematics and Computer Science from Eindhoven University of Technology (1985). His career has been based on researching supply chain management and operational excellence, as well as in consultancy in healthcare, public sector, and oil and gas sectors. While he worked all his life in academia, he has been a part-time consultant at ORTEC, a global provider of advanced planning and optimisation software solutions and consulting services (1999 -2001). His assignments were in the Healthcare sector, Public sector, and Oil & Gas sector. Van de Velde has also been a Programme Director at KLICT, a Dutch institute to stimulate and fund research on Chains, Networks, Logistics & ICT (2001-2003); a founding co-editor of the Journal of Scheduling (1997- 2011); Scientific Director at Dinalog, the Dutch Institute for Advanced Logistics (2009-2010); and Vice Dean at RSM (2008-2011).