Bernardus Johannes Maria "Ben" Verwaayen

KBE KBE may refer to: * Knight Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, post-nominal letters * Knowledge-based engineering Knowledge-based engineering (KBE) is the application of knowledge-based systems technology to the domain o ...

(born 11 February 1952) is a Dutch businessman and a general partner of Keen Venture Partners. He was

Chief Executive Officer A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a chief executive or managing director, is the top-ranking corporate officer charged with the management of an organization, usually a company or a nonprofit organization. CEOs find roles in variou ...

of the

telecommunications Telecommunication, often used in its plural form or abbreviated as telecom, is the transmission of information over a distance using electronic means, typically through cables, radio waves, or other communication technologies. These means of ...

company

Alcatel-Lucent Alcatel-Lucent S.A. () was a multinational telecommunications equipment company, headquartered in Boulogne-Billancourt, Paris, France. The company focused on Fixed line telephone, fixed, Mobile phone, mobile and telecommunications convergence, ...

from 2008 to 2013.

Early life

Verwaayen is the fifth of six children born to a family who owned a

chemicals A chemical substance is a unique form of matter with constant chemical composition and characteristic properties. Chemical substances may take the form of a single element or chemical compounds. If two or more chemical substances can be combin ...

business in

Driebergen Driebergen is a former village and municipality in the Dutch province of Utrecht. It is first mentioned as Thriberghen in 1159. The former municipality of Driebergen existed until 1931, when it merged with Rijsenburg, to create the new municipa ...

. At school, he organised the first student parliament, and after graduating from

Utrecht University Utrecht University (UU; , formerly ''Rijksuniversiteit Utrecht'') is a public university, public research university in Utrecht, Netherlands. Established , it is one of the oldest universities in the Netherlands. In 2023, it had an enrollment of ...

with a degree in

law Law is a set of rules that are created and are enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior, with its precise definition a matter of longstanding debate. It has been variously described as a science and as the ar ...

and

international relations International relations (IR, and also referred to as international studies, international politics, or international affairs) is an academic discipline. In a broader sense, the study of IR, in addition to multilateral relations, concerns al ...

in 1975, wanted to be a journalist or politician.

Career

On graduation, he decided to immediately undertake his

National Service National service is a system of compulsory or voluntary government service, usually military service. Conscription is mandatory national service. The term ''national service'' comes from the United Kingdom's National Service (Armed Forces) Act ...

with the

Royal Netherlands Army The Royal Netherlands Army (, KL) is the Ground warfare, land branch of the Netherlands Armed Forces. Though the Royal Netherlands Army was raised on 9 January 1814, its origins date back to 1572, when the was raised making the Dutch standing a ...

, where he founded the ''Algemene Vereniging Nederlandse Militairen'' (General Association of Dutch soldiers), a union that existed until 1996. On leaving the army, to enable him to continue his work with the trade union, he joined a subsidiary of

ITT Corporation ITT Inc., formerly ITT Corporation, is an American worldwide manufacturing company based in Stamford, Connecticut. The company produces specialty components for the aerospace, transportation, energy and industrial markets. ITT's three businesses ...

because it gave him time to sit on a Dutch state committee to reform the army. His first promotion came after he went to the

European Union Parliament The European Parliament (EP) is one of the two legislative bodies of the European Union and one of its seven institutions. Together with the Council of the European Union (known as the Council and informally as the Council of Ministers), it a ...

Brussels Brussels, officially the Brussels-Capital Region, (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) is a Communities, regions and language areas of Belgium#Regions, region of Belgium comprising #Municipalit ...

to protest about the company's alleged role in the overthrow of

Salvador Allende Salvador Guillermo Allende Gossens (26 June 1908 – 11 September 1973) was a Chilean socialist politician who served as the 28th president of Chile from 1970 until Death of Salvador Allende, his death in 1973 Chilean coup d'état, 1973. As a ...

's government in

Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in western South America. It is the southernmost country in the world and the closest to Antarctica, stretching along a narrow strip of land between the Andes, Andes Mountains and the Paci ...

; ITT responded by making him its Netherlands public relations chief. In 1988, Verwaayen became a director of PTT Telecom, the state-owned Dutch telecoms group that was a forerunner of today's

KPN Koninklijke KPN N.V. (Royal KPN N.V. in English), trading as KPN is a Dutch List of telephone operating companies, telecommunications company. KPN originated from a government-run postal, telegraph and telephone service and is based in Rotterda ...

; and then was appointed a board member of

Lucent Technologies Lucent Technologies, Inc. was an American Multinational corporation, multinational telecommunications equipment company headquartered in Murray Hill, New Jersey, Murray Hill, New Jersey. It was established on September 30, 1996, through the div ...

in 1997, moving to the United States. A committed

Anglophile An Anglophile is a person who admires or loves England, its people, its culture, its language, and/or its various accents. In some cases, Anglophilia refers to an individual's appreciation of English history and traditional English cultural ico ...

, he became

CEO A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a chief executive or managing director, is the top-ranking corporate officer charged with the management of an organization, usually a company or a nonprofit organization. CEOs find roles in variou ...

of BT in 2003. During his time there, he was also a board member for Dutch television production company

Endemol Endemol B.V. (stylized in all lowercase) was a Dutch-based media company that produced and distributed multiplatform entertainment content. The company annually produced more than 15,000 hours of programming across scripted and non-scripted gen ...

, and chaired the

Confederation of British Industry The Confederation of British Industry (CBI) is a British business interest group, which says it represents 190,000 businesses. The CBI has been described by the ''Financial Times'' as "Britain's biggest business lobby group". Incorporated by roy ...

committee on

climate change Present-day climate change includes both global warming—the ongoing increase in Global surface temperature, global average temperature—and its wider effects on Earth's climate system. Climate variability and change, Climate change in ...

. There was controversy over his management style at BT, with accusations that

BT Global Services BT Global is a division of United Kingdom telecommunications company BT Group that provides global security, cloud and networking services to multinational companies worldwide, with operations in 180 countries. It was established in July 2000 as B ...

had to write down substantial losses and that Verwaayen was to blame. After standing down from BT on 1 June 2008 when Ian Livingston took over, there was speculation that he would pursue a career in Dutch politics. On 2 September 2008 the

board of directors appointed Verwaayen as the company's chief executive officer, succeeding

Patricia Russo Patricia F. Russo (born June 12, 1952, in Trenton, New Jersey) is an American businessperson. Russo is most widely known for having served as chief executive officer of Lucent Technologies, and its successor, Alcatel-Lucent, a large communicatio ...

. In March 2009, he forwent a €520,000 cash bonus after a pay freeze had been imposed on staff and a loss-making 2008. He was less restrained in later years; his salary increased by 30% between 2010 and 2012, even as losses continued at the company. On 22 February 2013 the Alcatel-Lucent board of directors appointed

Michel Combes Michel Combes (born 29 March 1962) is a French businessman and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of SoftBank Group International ("SBGI"). Previously, he was CEO at Sprint, and has held CEO roles at Vodafone Europe, Alcatel-Lucent and Altice. Earl ...

as the company's CEO, succeeding Verwaayen, effective 1 April. He joined

Akamai Technologies Akamai Technologies, Inc. is an American company specialized in content delivery networkJ. Dilley, B. Maggs, J. Parikh, H. Prokop, R. Sitaraman, and B. Weihl. (CDN), cybersecurity, DDoS mitigation, and cloud services. It is headquartered in ...

as a director in November 2013. In 2016, Verwaayen founded Keen Venture Partners, a

venture capital Venture capital (VC) is a form of private equity financing provided by firms or funds to start-up company, startup, early-stage, and emerging companies, that have been deemed to have high growth potential or that have demonstrated high growth in ...

firm providing early growth capital for technology companies. Since April 2020, he has been Chairman of Renewi plc.

Politics

During his military service, Verwaayen founded the ''Algemene Vereniging Nederlandse Militairen'' (General Association of Dutch soldiers), a union that existed until 1996. Verwaayen has been a longtime member of the

People's Party for Freedom and Democracy The People's Party for Freedom and Democracy ( , VVD) is a Conservative liberalism, conservative-liberal List of political parties in the Netherlands, political party in the Netherlands. The VVD, whose forerunner was the Freedom Party (Netherl ...

. He sat in its executive for ten years, and also contributed to its election programme for the 2006 Dutch elections. At various times, he was linked with a

Cabinet Cabinet or The Cabinet may refer to: Furniture * Cabinetry, a box-shaped piece of furniture with doors and/or drawers * Display cabinet, a piece of furniture with one or more transparent glass sheets or transparent polycarbonate sheets * Filin ...

position. The current Dutch Prime Minister,

Mark Rutte Mark Rutte (; born 14 February 1967) is a Dutch politician who has served as the 14th Secretary General of NATO, secretary general of NATO since October 2024. He previously served as Prime Minister of the Netherlands, prime minister of the Neth ...

, has named him as one of his closest advisors.

Honours

Verwaayen has received various honorary awards and has been made '' Officier in de Orde van Oranje Nassau'' (Netherlands), ''Honorary Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire'' KBE (United Kingdom), and a knight in the ''

Legion of Honour The National Order of the Legion of Honour ( ), formerly the Imperial Order of the Legion of Honour (), is the highest and most prestigious French national order of merit, both military and Civil society, civil. Currently consisting of five cl ...

'' (France).

Personal life

Married to Helena, the couple have two children. They currently reside in Paris, but had a family home in

Haslemere The town of Haslemere () and the villages of Shottermill and Grayswood are in south-west Surrey, England, around south-west of London. Together with the settlements of Hindhead and Beacon Hill (Hindhead, Surrey), Beacon Hill, they comprise ...

Surrey Surrey () is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Greater London to the northeast, Kent to the east, East Sussex, East and West Sussex to the south, and Hampshire and Berkshire to the wes ...

where Verwaayen hosted a party in summer 2008, attended by 1,300 guests including former

Vodafone Vodafone Group Public Limited Company () is a British Multinational company, multinational telecommunications company. Its registered office and global headquarters are in Newbury, Berkshire, England. It predominantly operates Service (economic ...

CEO

Arun Sarin Arun Sarin (born 21 October 1954) is an Indian-American telecommunications executive. Sarin was the former CEO of the telecom giant Vodafone, serving from 2003 until 2008. He drove the integration of Vodafone, Airtouch and Mannesman. He was al ...

, UK government ministers

Stephen Twigg Stephen Daniel Twigg (born 25 December 1966) is a British Labour Co-op politician who has served as the 8th Secretary-General of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association since August 2020. He served as Member of Parliament (United Kingdom), Me ...

and

John Denham John Denham may refer to: * John Denham (died 1556 or later), English MP for Shaftesbury * John Denham (judge), (1559–1639), father of the poet below, and one of the Ship Money judges * John Denham (poet) (1615–1669), English poet * John Denh ...

. Verwaayen, a tennis player himself, put on a celebrity tennis match between John Lloyd and

Ilie Năstase Ilie Theodoriu Năstase (; born 19 July 1946) is a Romanian former professional tennis player. He was ranked as the inaugural world No. 1 in men's singles by the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) for 40 weeks. Năstase is one of ten play ...

, and is also a fan of

Arsenal F.C. The Arsenal Football Club, commonly known as simply Arsenal, is a professional football club based in Islington, North London, England. They compete in the Premier League, the top tier of English football. In domestic football, Arsenal h ...

References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Verwaayen, Ben 1952 births 20th-century Dutch businesspeople 21st-century Dutch businesspeople Alcatel-Lucent BT Group people Businesspeople awarded knighthoods Businesspeople in electronics Businesspeople in telecommunications Dutch chairpersons of corporations Dutch chief executives in the manufacturing industry Dutch technology chief executives Dutch company founders Dutch investors Dutch media executives Endemol people Financial company founders Honorary Knights Commander of the Order of the British Empire ITT Inc. people Knights Grand Cross of the Order of Orange-Nassau Knights of the Legion of Honour KPN Living people People from Driebergen-Rijsenburg People's Party for Freedom and Democracy politicians Royal Netherlands Army personnel Utrecht University alumni Venture capitalists