Resumé Kees Cools

Kees Cools (49) is partner at Booz & Company in Amsterdam since April 2009. Before joining Booz & Company he worked with The Boston Consulting Group from 1993 until 2009. Since 1999 he is also Professor of Corporate Finance at the University of Groningen. In both his consulting and academic work he focuses on corporate strategy, corporate finance, corporate governance & leadership, entrepreneurship and performance management, with a particular interest in the energy sector.

Kees is actively involved in (corporate) governance activities. He is a member of the Dutch Corporate Governance Monitoring Committee, chaired by Jean Frijns. That committee monitors the Dutch Corporate Governance Code (the "Tabaksblat Code") of December 2003 and advises the government on corporate governance matters, e.g. shareholder activism, board diversity and executive remuneration. He also personally acts as advisor for the Dutch government on related matters, such as (regulation of) private equity, privatisation of Schiphol Airport, liberalisation of the energy market, designing the governance structure for for-profit hospitals.

In 2005 Kees published a book on governance and leadership entitled "Control is good, trust even better" in which he analyzed the 25 largest corporate scandals that occurred around the turn of the millennium (e.g. Enron, Worldcom, Shell, Ahold). His analyses showed that "Not bad formal corporate governance, but narcissistic sunking behavior of CEO's, greed and belief in air castles were the root cause of the scandals". He concluded that the threat of entrepreneurship caused by the corporate governance hausse (Sarbanes Oxley, Tabaksblat Code, Combined Code, etc.) could not be repaired by a higher intensity of "pay for performance", but by managing on trust. The book was awarded with the prize for the best management book 2005. His prior book, co-authored with Hans van Londen, was about dilemma's on corporate governance and leadership, entitled "Holding on or letting go".

Kees is married to Anita and they have two children, Ingrid (20) and Ward (19).