Commercial Officer

About Jaap Zeeuw van der Laan

My name is Jaap Zeeuw van der Laan and I am a fourth year Economics student. I just finished my bachelor and wanted to gain some practical experience before continuing with my master.

I am EFR's Commercial Officer, this means that all the contacts with companies and our sponsors go by me. I'm learning more than just the theories I've learned so far at the university. Applying myself fulltime has given me the chance to develop my personal skills in a professional and fun way.

About the Commercial Officer

The EFR finds herself in a unique position with her centralised commercial structure: only one person, the CO, is responsible for all the commercial affairs. There is close contact with the largest multinationals and one of the most important things for the CO is to stay in close contact with these and establish contacts with new ones. Relationship management is the keyword!

Your main task is to finance all the activities the EFR has: they all depend on you! Besides this, you are also the one who organizes trainings for the active members and invites well known speakers, using your company contacts. Since you are the commissioner commercial affairs in the board, every decision must be subjected to your critical commercial point of view.

In the first months of the year, you and your predecessor will visit the majority of the companies to get to know the business contacts. For everything the EFR does, this year you have to get in contact with them. You have to face the wishes of the organisations, combine these with the activities the EFR has and reach the final goal: a win-win situation. Since you will have intense contact with the companies, you also have to support the commercial committee members of the EFR.

A CO is verbally strong, is able to write formally, is a good listener, is representative, likes to communicate with all kinds of people and is able to negotiate. With all the visits and contact moments, you really get to know a wide range of companies, all with a different culture.

You will be subjected to quite some time pressure, since the CO is one of the busiest board members. Nevertheless, it sure is a nice challenge! All the things you will have to do will give you the opportunity to really develop yourself.