External Affairs Officer of the Board: My experiences
Over the course of the past 9 months, I have had the opportunity to be the External Affairs Officer of the Board of Asset | International Business & Management. In this blogpost, I will tell you more about what has made this such a great experience for me and will try to give you an insight into what my function looks like.
To start off, I will give you a short introduction of myself. My name is Tom van Doorne, 22 years old and originally from Oosterhout. I became active at Asset | IB&M at the start of my first year of the bachelor IBA. During my three years as an active member I did several committees, which were: First Year Committee, International Travel Committee and the Business Club.
It was during the end of my second year IBA that I started thinking about possibly doing a board year at Asset | IB&M after my bachelor. However, I never really thought this plan through. During my exchange in Singapore, my plans of doing a board year became more concrete. I had several roommates/friends who experienced a board year at Asset | IB&M first hand, so I asked them about their experiences. After hearing all their great stories, I was certain that I wanted to become the next External Affairs Officer at Asset | IB&M. So, I decided to apply and happily I got selected! Hence, after finishing my bachelor IBA in 2019, I started my board year as External Affairs Officer at Asset | IB&M.
My Experiences
As External Affairs Officer I am responsible for all contact with companies that are interested in Asset | IB&M. This can range from companies that are interested in posting content on our social media pages to companies wanting to participate in one of our formal events. Next to this core task, I am also responsible for helping our 27 committees in the acquisition process for their specific committee. However, my tasks are not limited to Asset | IB&M, since an External Affairs Officer is partly responsible for the acquisition of Asset Tilburg as well.
After getting selected, I started with the conveyance period together with my predecessor. This conveyance period can be seen as the start of your board year. During this period I got helpful advice and guidance, to make sure I was completely ready and installed when the academic year started in September. However, during this conveyance period my work already started! While still getting to know the tricks of the trade, I already went to several company visits. When you have a company visit you will physically go the head office of that firm and you will, together with the recruiters of the company, discuss all cooperation possibilities we can offer as Asset | IB&M. These visits were definitely one of the most interesting things during my board year, since you will see all kinds of offices of different multinationals! Because of having this function, I visited the headquarters of for example: Shell, Philips and PwC.
After this period, the academic year started and also all committees start working on their informal and formal events. As a board member I coordinated several committees during the year. These include informal committees that organizes parties, which is of course very fun to be a part of. Next to the informal committees, you will also coordinate formal committees which will organize formal events such as career event. One of the committees I coordinated was for instance the IBA Week,which organised a career event for all bachelor IBA students. Eventually we had 9 companies participating and around the 270 subscriptions of students!
Below you can find an example of what my week as External Affairs Officer looks like:
Monday
Morning: Board meeting with all board members of Asset | IB&M
Afternoon: Working on some function specific tasks to start off the week
Evening: Free time
Tuesday:
Morning: Call appointment with companies + doing some cold acquisition
Afternoon: Meeting with several committees
Evening: Football practice
Wednesday:
Morning: Meeting with the IBA Week and Marketing Expedition Committees
Afternoon: Company visit to an interested company
Evening: Date Dinner
Thursday:
Morning: Call appointment with companies + doing some cold acquisition
Afternoon: Acquisition Meeting of Asset together with all Externals from other Asset departments
Evening: Football practice and afterwards Monthly Drink
Friday:
Morning: Replying to email and checking on committee acquisition
Afternoon: Finishing the tasks of this week, to start off freshly next week
Evening: Free
What I have learned
During my board year, I have learned several things from professionality when in contact with interested companies, to planning when you and one of your committees is organizing a party! No matter which position in the board you occupy, you will learn a lot of skills that will benefit you in the future. As External Affairs Officer you will have more contact with companies, so the function specific things you will learn are mostly related to this aspect. This will include, as mentioned, professionality, but also networking, leading groups of people and negotiating skills.
All in all, I am very happy with my decision to do a board year as External Affairs Officer at Asset | IB&M. I have developed myself in many different ways, got to know a lot of wonderful people and I had a lot of fun during our formal and informal events!
Next academic year I will start with a Master and will use some more time to keep up with my football practices, but of course I will first pass my function on to my successor. If you are interested in becoming the new External Affairs Officer, feel free to send me a message or send an email to externalaffairs@asset-ibm.nl so we can plan a (virtual) coffee.
Are you possibly interested in becoming my successor? Subscribe for our virtual board information session on Monday March 30 at 13:00 ‘o clock via: https://www.asset-ibm.nl/event/board_info_session/.
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