It was a happy reunion, last week’s Mandeville day (for an impression, including photographs, see www.mandevillelezing.nl). Jeroen van der Veer, my former colleague at Shell, gave a highly personal account of his leadership challenges and the way he tackled them as CEO. It was obviously my first Mandeville ceremony, and I had no clear idea of what to expect.

So when I realised that Jeroen van der Veer had drawn a full house, and when I saw the honours students doing an absolutely marvellous job in presenting “Jeroen van der Veer’s leadership DNA”, I realised that litterally hundreds of people had committed time and energy to making this day a memorable one. So let me take this opportunity to extend a big thank you to the team who made it all possible, including the Stichting Bernard Mandeville, the Trustfonds and Club Rotterdam. Funny character, this Mandeville. A kind of Gordon Gekko (‘greed is good’) of his time. Totally unlike this year’s laureate. In case you could not be there, I really recommend the website for further reading.