Recipients of the awards exemplify excellent leadership and reflect RSM’s mission to be a force for positive change. Joining the ranks of RSM Distinguished Alumni in 2018 are Diederick van der Wijk; Niels van Deuren; Tom Marshall; and Alexandre Moneton and Jasper J. J. Buntinx (joint award).
Nominees were put forward from the network of 36,000+ RSM alumni with senior positions in private, public and non-profit organisations around the world. Nominations were made in two categories: for achievement, and for volunteering.
The achievement award acknowledges alumni who are a force for positive change in business or society. This can be as a part of a corporate community, as an entrepreneur, or as an individual whose life mission is to improve the lives of others or to protect or improve the environment. The recipients are:
MSc International Management/CEMS 2018 and founder of non-profit organisation Refugees Forward.
MSc International Management/CEMS 2012 and founder of HousingAnywhere.
The volunteering award recognises alumni volunteers who share their time or resources to contribute to RSM’s reputation, research, education and student experience, or help promote alumni relations. The recipients are:
BSc International Business Administration 2011, MSc International Management/CEMS 2014 and founder at Danish Capital LLC in Toronto.
BSc International Business Administration 2012, MSc Finance & Investments 2014 and infrastructure associate at Macquarie Group in London.
This is a joint award for their joint effort. They established the RSM Entrepreneurial Spirit Scholarship, which support students with financial constraints to participate in the BScIBA at RSM.
MSc Management of Innovation 2016 and founder of Extraordinary Life and Innovation consultant at Deloitte.
The awards recognise alumni who are agents of positive change. And as times change, so the categorising of the awards changes. There have been several categories since the first Distinguished Alumni Awards were presented in 2009.
This year, a new award for volunteering was introduced to reflect the increasing number of alumni who are giving back to the school in many ways. “They are critical to the school,” says RSM’s Director of Corporate and Alumni Relations Sue Martin. “Alumni matter to a business school; they can give us advice and advocacy as we follow what’s going on in their world, and they are prime examples of what an RSM education can give you.
“They are delivering the positive change of RSM, and we are proud see it. We are very excited to be able to put at least some of them in the spotlight now,” she said.
Nominations could be made by RSM alumni, students, faculty members or staff members. A shortlist of nominees was judged by a jury of six RSM staff, faculty and Distinguished Alumni, who kept in mind RSM’s mission and core values: to be critical, creative, caring and collaborative thinkers and doers who are a force for positive change.
The shortlist of 25 nominees was put to a public vote on RSM’s website in September. The awards were presented to the four nominations that came top in the aggregated results of these two processes.
Six jury members contributed their scores to the results of the online voting. When choosing award recipients, the jury kept RSM’s mission and core values in mind. The recipients are all critical, creative, caring and collaborative thinkers and doers who are a force for positive change.
The jury members were:
Interviews with RSM’s latest Distinguished Alumni will be featured in the forthcoming issue of the alumni magazine RSM Outlook, which is due for publication in early December 2018.
