Louis van Gaal

Aloysius Paulus Maria "Louis" van Gaal OON (born 8 August 1951 in Amsterdam) is a Dutch football manager formerly in charge of Ajax, Netherlands, Barcelona, AZ and Bayern Munich. Before his career as coach van Gaal played as a midfielder for Royal Antwerp, Telstar, Sparta Rotterdam and AZ. Van Gaal is also a fully qualified gymnastics teacher, and has worked as such at high-schools during various stages of his career as a semi-professional football-player.

After a brief spell as coach at AZ, Van Gaal served as assistant coach under Leo Beenhakker at Ajax, and eventually took over as head coach in 1991. Under his lead, the club won three league titles, the UEFA Cup, and the Champions League. Van Gaal moved to Barcelona in 1997 and won two Spanish league titles and one Spanish Cup. After some disagreements at Barcelona, he was appointed coach of the Dutch national team, but then failed to qualify for the 2002 World Cup. Another brief spell at Barcelona followed, before he became manager of AZ. After having won the Dutch championship with AZ in 2008–09, he was hired by Bayern Munich on 1 July 2009. In his first season at Munich, he secured the German league title and won the German Cup, and made it to the final of the Champions League.

Van Gaal is an avid promoter of attacking football, educated in the best traditions of the Total Football by Ajax and the Dutch national team of the 1970s. As a coach he is known as a slow starter who frequently finds his players needing ample time to grasp his tactics and intent of play. Generally his teams gather results in the second or third season under his coaching, an exception being the 2009–10 season when he grasped the German Bundesliga title and lost the UEFA Champions League final with FC Bayern Munich. During several periods in his career, Van Gaal has had his troubles with the media. He is known to be very blunt with media representatives he perceives to be asking him 'stupid' questions.

From : www.wikipedia.org

Mark Rutte

Mark Rutte (born 14 February 1967) is a Dutch politician who has been Prime Minister of the Netherlands since 14 October 2010, as well as Minister of General Affairs in the Rutte cabinet. He is the current leader of the right-wing conservative Liberal People's Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD).

Mark Rutte previously served as State Secretary for Social Affairs and Employment from 22 July 2002 to 17 June 2004 in the Cabinets Balkenende I and II. Subsequently he was State Secretary for Education, Culture and Science from 17 June 2004 until his resignation on 27 June 2006, when he was elected to succeed Jozias van Aartsen as the new VVD party leader.

At the 2006 general election the People's Party for Freedom and Democracy under Rutte lost six seats and he became opposition leader, serving during the Cabinet Balkenende IV. After the fall of the Cabinet Balkenende IV, a snap election was called, and Rutte was once again the VVD's lijsttrekker (top party list candidate) for the 2010 general election. The VVD won the highest number of votes cast, resulting in their occupying 31 of the 150 seats in the House of Representatives. After a long formation period, Rutte became prime minister and formed a cabinet. When he was sworn in on 14 October 2010, he became the first liberal Prime Minister in the Netherlands in 92 years.

Early Life

Born in The Hague, Rutte attended a gymnasium high school, specialising in the arts, from 1979 till 1985. Although his original ambition was to attend the conservatory and become a concert pianist, he went to study history at Leiden University, where he obtained a MA degree in History in 1992. He combined his studies with a position in the board of the Youth Organisation Freedom and Democracy, the youth organisation of the VVD, of which he was chairperson between 1988 and 1991.

After his studies he entered the business world, working as a manager for Unilever and Calvé. Until 1997 he was part of the human resource-department of Unilever and played a leading role in several reorganisations. Between 1997 and 2000 he was personnel manager for Van den Bergh Nederland, a subsidiary of Unilever. In 2000 he became member of the Corporate Human Resources Group. And since 2002 he was director of Human Resources for IgloMora Groep, another subsidiary of Unilever.

Between 1993 and 1997 he was a member of the national board of the VVD. He also served as a member of the VVD candidate committee for the general election of 2002. He was himself elected as a member of parliament in 2003.

Personal Life

Mark Rutte is unmarried. He is a member of the Calvinist Reformed Protestant Church in the Netherlands. He still teaches two hours a week at the The Hague University of Applied Sciences.

From : www.wikipedia.org

Joop van den Ende

Johannes "Joop" Adrianus van den Ende (born 23 February 1942) is a Dutch media tycoon, theatrical producer, co-founder of Endemol and founder/owner of Stage Entertainment.

Joop van den Ende (Amsterdam 1942) has produced many plays, musicals, revues, films and television programmes over the last 35 years. In 1969 he started his career as an independent theatre and television producer. Under his guidance, a new musical tradition developed in the Netherlands. Hundreds of television productions were created in his own studio complex in Aalsmeer.

In 1993 Van den Ende and his competitor John de Mol created television production company Endemol, combining the efforts of their respective TV companies. Endemol is the producer of popular TV formats such as Big Brother and is active in 25 countries on five continents.

Endemol was listed on the stock exchange in 1996 and was sold to the Spanish telecom giant Telefónica in 2000 for €5.5bn. (In 2007 Endemol was sold on to a consortium including Silvio Berlusconi, the former prime minister of Italy, as well as John de Mol, in a deal valued at €2.6bn).

In 1998, before the sale of the company, Joop van den Ende bought the Endemol live entertainment division. This was the beginning of Stage Entertainment, an international entertainment group with theatres, productions, offices and ticket sale organisations in eight countries.

In 2001 he established the VandenEnde Foundation with his wife, Janine, creating one of the largest Dutch private funds. The Foundation supports a wide variety of activities in the arts, theatre, and education fields.

Together with his business partner Hubert Deitmers, Van den Ende is also active as an investor. Van den Ende & Deitmers Venture Capitalist Partners focuses on West European cross media companies via two venture capital funds with a total value of 150 million Euro.

From 2005 to 2008, Joop van den Ende was active in real estate development through Living City Property Performance, a joint venture with Trimp & Van Tartwijk. Living City concentrated in mixed-use development and urban regeneration schemes around theatres, and was active in the Netherlands and abroad. In April 2008 Van den Ende decided to end his involvement in Living City following a fraud investigation directed at his partners in the venture. Van den Ende is still actively involved in building the new De La Mar theatre in central Amsterdam through the VandenEnde Foundation, and the VandenEnde Theatre on the Amsterdam 'Zuidas' through his company Stage Entertainment.

In 2008, he is #843 on Forbes' list of billionaires and one of the richest people in the Netherlands.

From : www.wikipedia.org

John de Mol

Johannes "John" Hendrikus Hubert de Mol (born 24 April 1955) is a Dutch media tycoon. De Mol is one of the men behind production companies Endemol and Talpa.

Endemol

De Mol, a well known personality in the Netherlands, acquired his fortune producing television programmes. In 1997-1999 he developed the highly popular reality television series Big Brother with his own production company John de Mol Produkties. In 1994 his company merged with Joop van den Ende TV-Producties into Endemol, but it still functioned on its own. He also produced Love Letters, 1 vs. 100 and Deal or No Deal (Miljoenenjacht) for Endemol. De Mol sold his share of Endemol in 2000 to Telefonica, but continued to serve as creative director until 2004. In 2005, he was among the Forbes magazine list of the 500 richest people in the world.

In May 2007 De Mol returned as one of the main share holders of Endemol together with the Italian company Mediaset of Silvio Berlusconi in a 2.6 billion Euro deal.

In 2010 a new Reality Sing Audition Show, The Voice of Holland, was launched by de Mol. It was an incredible success in the Netherlands and the formula was sold to several other countries around the globe. The Voice (of America) launched on April 27, 2011, with NBC and with John de Mol and Mark Burnett as Executive Producers. In the Voice, the singing auditions are 'blind': the jury is turned with their back to the competitors. Once 'selected' (by pushing a button), the juror turns towards the competitor. This concept, co-product of John de Mol and Dutch singing star Roel van Velzen, makes is 'All about the Voice'. After these Blind Auditions, the coaches will train their 8 competitors through knock-out battles and public voting rounds until there is one competitor left, who will be 'The Voice'. In the original Dutch series the four judges in the jury were: singer Angela Groothuizen, singer Roel van Velzen, singers Nick & Simon (acting as 1 judge) and singer Jeroen van der Boom. First winner in the Netherland: Ben Saunders, was chosen by all jurors during the Blind Audition. It took Ben seven words into his song, before three of the four judges selected him, pushed their button and had their chairs turn towards him. In 'The Voice' (USA), the four judges are singers Christina Aguilera, Cee Lo Green, Adam Levine (lead singer of Maroon 5) and country music artist Blake Shelton. The US premiere of 'The Voice', the Blind Auditions, turned out to be the best NBC New Program Launch in over three years, with 12 million people watching.

Private life

De Mol was formerly married to singer and actress Willeke Alberti. The actor Johnny de Mol is their son.

From 1979 to 1982, he was romantically involved with Marga Scheide, member of the girl group Luv'.

Outside of television, De Mol controls large private equity fund which owned significant shares of auto manufacturer Spyker Cars and telecommunications company Versatel.

John's sister, actress Linda de Mol, appears in and presents some of his programmes, including the original Dutch version of Deal or No Deal, Miljoenenjacht (Hunt for Millions). She also presented one of Endemol's first productions, The DJ Kat Show.

From : www.wikipedia.org

Charlene de Carvalho-Heineken

Charlene de Carvalho-Heineken (born 30 June 1954, Amsterdam) is the owner of a controlling interest in the world's third-largest brewer, Heineken International.

She is the daughter of Freddy Heineken, the Dutch industrialist, and Lucille Cummins, an American from a Kentucky family of bourbon whiskey distillers.

Charlene Heineken studied law at the University of Leiden. She married Michel de Carvalho, a financier involved in NM Rothschild and Citi businesses, graduate of Harvard University, former film actor (as Michel Ray), and former Olympic luger she met on a ski holiday in St. Moritz, Switzerland. They reside in London, England with their five children.

Upon the death of her father in 2002, she inherited a fortune worth approximately three billion, which, by 2010 had grown to £4.4Bn, making her the richest woman in the Netherlands. She sits on the board of management of Heineken, and her husband is a member of the supervisory board.

From : www.wikipedia.org