30 May 2017

2003 YSSPer Peter van Grinsven

Peter van Grinsven was in the Processes of International Negotiation Program as a 2003 YSSPer. His experience following IIASA includes a Senior Policy Adviser role to now being the Director of Corporate Development at the Royal Schiphol Group. Below he describes how the YSSP impacted him professionally. 

Peter van Grinsven © Royal Schiphol Group

Peter van Grinsven © Royal Schiphol Group

"Being a participant during the YSSP of 2003 still has a positive influence on my current position at Royal Schiphol Group. Back then I was a scholar at the Clingendael Institute doing research on EU decision making. The three main take aways during my first summer in Laxenburg were and still are: the added value of a non-political international working environment, the necessity of interdisciplinary cooperation/friendship and fact based analysis on the impact of different global challenges on sustainability.

To my surprise I was awarded the Peccei scholarship, which gave me the opportunity to participate once again in the YSSP a year later. This time I was able to both assist a friend of mine from Leiden University on his PhD-research and, in all honesty, enjoy the cultural life in Vienna a bit more intensely then in 2003.

Ever since then my career took several moves. After a short period at the Dutch Foreign Ministry to analyze the “No” on the European Constitution, I decided to use my skills in strategy consulting for a renowned Dutch consulting firm doing many projects for Dutch government and businesses and ended up as the responsible managing partner of both the public practice and the Young Executives Programme.

And then last year a golden opportunity presented itself. Via an international executive search firm, I was asked to apply for the position of Director Corporate Development at Royal Schiphol Group. Somehow this felt right straight away, since this position combines several of my main interests that I partly discovered at IIASA: strategy, international activities, stakeholder-management (government and airlines) and the challenge of achieving sustainable growth within the boundaries of corporate responsibility on one hand and aviation becoming a commodity on the other.

It is my personal ambition in the coming years to formulate a new strategy for a large airport like Amsterdam Airport Schiphol that will apply to the SDG’s, Paris Agreement and beyond. Not just for the airport but for the entire aviation sector. To have a true impact and to find real solutions for the current global challenges. This ambition started in the back of my mind during my stays at IIASA and has surfaced now in full."



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Last edited: 30 May 2017

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