Greeting from the new director for alumni
23 Dec 2011
Dear Holland alumni,
It is an honour for me to introduce myself to you as the new director of Nuffic Neso Indonesia.One of my main aims it to I support the expansion of the Holland Alumni Network in Indonesia and intensify the relation you have with each other and with the Netherlands.
Alumni are extremely important to me and I am not the only one with that point of view. Once I read that alumni are among an institution's greatest assets and perhaps the only asset guaranteed to grow every year.More recently I had an interesting conversation with the Dutch ambassador in Jakarta and he mentioned that for him Holland Alumni are ‘invaluable’. Since I strongly agree with bith these statements the cooperation with alumni will be a top priority for me.
Furthermore, I am looking forward to support Dutch higher education institutions in promoting themselves and further strengthening their relationship with Indonesia in the coming years.Indonesia and the Netherlands have a lot to offer to eachother, whether it is in institutional cooperation, scholarship programmes or providing an opportunity to study abroad. As alumi I reckon you will also be pleased that Dutch universities consistently perform well in the annual global rankings. After the recently published Times Higher Education ranking one of the editors wrote on the Netherlands: “its 12 institutions in the top 200 is an extraordinary achievement given the size of the country – making the Netherlands’ a major global higher education powerhouse”(THE, October 2011).
Finally, something about myself. Before joining Nuffic in September 2011 I worked for almost 10 years at the University of Amsterdam in different positions. My main tasks and responsibilities have been in the field of (international) marketing, recruitment, admissions, alumni affairs, communications and general management. Earlier in my career I have been employed by an education agent in Bangkok (Thailand) representing universities from the UK, China and Australia. In the past few years I have also been active within the European Association for International Education (EAIE) as board member and chair of the Marketing & Recruitment section. My academic roots lie at Utrecht University (International Economics & Economic Geography, 1998) and the University of London's Institute of Education (MBA in Higher Education Management, 2005).
I hope to meet you in the coming period at one of our events and should you have any questions or suggestions please don’t hesitate to get in touch with me or my colleagues.
Kind regards,
Mervin Bakker