We at NABC are always striving to improve our services and add valuable activities to our program. Our ‘African Business Club’ is one of those new activities and we are proud to inform you that our first gathering on August 19, 2010 at the Crowne Plaza Hotel (Den Haag) was a success!
To get started we asked the participants to introduce their selves and what they do. This came at hand during the drink where everyone got the change to meet personally and most already planned who they would like to meet. We kicked off with Vincent Halsema (former NABC team member), sharing with us his valuable experiences in Angola. Vincent had the members listening attentively with his natural strong presentation skills.
Next we asked a couple of members to share their stories with us on their business experience in Africa. This again brought forward to some interesting discussions and informative facts about the African countries such as Ghana, Nigeria, South Africa, the Congo’s, Kenya, Burundi and Zambia to name a few. Although not everyone got the chance to share his or her experiences, we’ve already been in touch with participants that are inspired to tell something during the next meeting.
At the end of the first part of our gathering we listened to our keynote speaker of the day, Commercial Director at AON and Honorary Consul of Burkina Faso in the Netherlands, Freek Warmelink. Mister Warmelink shared with us how he got to be honorary consul of Burkina Faso, which to his saying was ‘’…a total coincidence.’’ Not only is mister Warmelink active in the Netherlands with his daily responsibilities as Honorary Consul, but he also has his own projects within Burkina Faso, such as building public schools. Freek invites you to his seminar ‘BURKINA FASO: OPPORTUNITIES & DEVELOPMENTS’ on the 9th of September 2010 in The Hague. For the program and registration click here.
We closed off the evening with a terrifically serviced drink where the matchmaking happened. The night ended as scheduled after all the participants went home with a couple of business cards to add to their collection.
Marcel Rentrop, of Worldwide Food Export, said he enjoyed listening to Vincent’s speech a lot and that it was more a performance than simply sharing his experience with us’’. Mr. Warmelink, made Rentrop consider doing business in Burkina Faso and Marcel will also be attending Warmelink’s seminar on the 9th of September.
Lex Lindeman, of HR Boosters, enjoyed meeting with the broad diversity between our members at the drink and found the speeches to be very interesting and should be part of the program each time. Lindeman said that these meetings have a lot to offer and the number of participants needs to grow each time!
Kees van ’t Klooster (board member of NABC and project director Africa at WUR) met Lex Lindeman through NABC. Lindeman’s training and coaching experience for leaders in the business community and Klooster’s network with Universities around the world were joined together to work on a project given to them by the University of Zambia (Mulungushi University). This four year program will start on 15 September 2010 and will hopefully be a step forward in realizing the close co-operation between research institutions and industries. So to our interested readers we’ll say: ‘’to be continued..’’
All questioned participants graded the overall meeting with an 8 or higher and that is pleasant for us to hear at NABC. In the end, it comes down to creating a big cycle of networks where each of us can help to achieve our goals and promote sustainable development of the African continent.