As of January 15, 2024, Ron Gruijters joins our team as manager sustainable finance. DUFAS is pleased to welcome Ron as a new permanent team member. His knowledge and experience make him a valuable addition to the team. To get to know him better, we asked Ron a few questions.
What is your (work) background?
"With a PhD in Latinistics, I have a somewhat unusual background for finance. I studied Classical Languages in Leiden and then did historical research at the University of Amsterdam on the impact on public opinion of the - still very common in the 16th and 17th centuries! - Latin drama. After completing that, I was eager to work in a more corporate environment and in 2011, at the height of the financial crisis, I joined the Financial Markets Authority (AFM) as a rookie supervisor. At the time, I very deliberately took this "square turn" in my career - and it always provides fun conversation material for drinks, too! Via Eumedion, where I enjoyed working as a sustainability policy officer for over four years, I have now arrived at DUFAS."
Why sustainability in the financial sector?
"At the AFM in 2017, I conducted an exploratory analysis of how sustainability in the financial sector could affect the AFM's supervisory areas. At the time, the European Commission was about to publish a comprehensive sustainability strategy and the urgent conclusion was that almost the entire supervision would be affected. We are now many years down the road and it is impossible to imagine the financial sector without sustainability. Think of annual reporting and auditing, retail services, capital markets ('green bonds'), but especially institutional asset management. Not least thanks to the pioneering role of a number of large Dutch financial companies, the ambitious European legislative package and pioneering work by regulators such as the AFM and De Nederlandsche Bank."
How (sustainably) do you see the future of the financial sector?
"The steering effect of institutionally invested assets is truly unimaginable. It is wonderful to see how many steps the financial sector and politicians have taken in recent years to give sustainability an increasingly central role in the sector and in the real economy. The stormy developments of recent years really feel in some respects like a 'race to the top', and the impatience to want even more and go even faster is clearly visible. The sense of urgency is strong, the willingness to make a lasting difference has grown unmistakably. But this 'race' comes with stiff challenges. Not just practical challenges around implementation. For example, we need to chart even more clearly whether we are actually achieving our goals together. How do we avoid a waterbed effect? How do we - not only as a sector, but also as the Netherlands, as Europe - maintain a leading role and at the same time ensure that those who lag behind stay on board? I am going to dedicate myself to this with great pleasure and energy at DUFAS, for and on behalf of our members."
