For the Dutch version, click here. After two editions of absence, the famous StudyTour of Asset | Accounting & Finance is finally back! That is why we are going big with an amazing trip to the beautiful country Brazil! We will visit many beautiful places and travel to two of the world’s greatest cities: São Paulo and Rio de janeiro. In this Faces article we will explain more to you about Brazil, our travel, and the research we are going to perform during the trip. Information about Brazil Brazil is a beautiful country with a rich culture and natural wonders. One of the country’s biggest attractions is its beaches, which are among the best in the world. The warm waters of the Atlantic Ocean, combined with soft sand and picturesque landscapes, make for an unforgettable experience. São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro are two of Brazil’s most famous cities and are known for their vibrant culture, exciting nightlife, and beautiful architecture. São Paulo is the largest city in Brazil and is a major economic hub, known for its skyscrapers, museums, and art galleries. The city is also home to some of the best restaurants in the country, offering a diverse array of cuisines. Rio de Janeiro, on the other hand, is famous for its beaches, samba music, and Carnival celebrations. The city is home to some of Brazil’s most iconic landmarks, including Christ the Redeemer, Sugarloaf Mountain, and the Tijuca Forest National Park. The beaches of Copacabana and Ipanema are also major attractions, drawing tourists from all over the world. In addition to their natural beauty and cultural offerings, both São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro are home to a diverse and friendly population. The people of Brazil are known for their warm hospitality and love of life, making it a great destination for travelers looking for a unique and exciting experience. Our research in Brazil During our trip to Brazil we will do various activities. First of all, we will do some company visits and have meetings with large multinationals to answer our main research question. This will be done to compare Dutch companies to the ones in Brazil and see how their corporate culture is different, how different issues are dealt with while focusing on an increasing issue regarding sustainability in the agricultural sector. In recent years, sustainability has become an increasingly important issue in Dutch politics and has had a significant impact on the agrarian sector. The Dutch government has set ambitious targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, promoting sustainable agriculture, and increasing biodiversity. The Dutch agrarian industry is known for its highly advanced and technology-driven farming practices, allowing maximum productivity and efficiency. The Netherlands is a very small country, yet it is one of the world’s largest exporters of agricultural products. In contrast, the Brazilian agricultural industry is known for its vast expanses of farmland, with Brazil being one of the world’s largest producers and exporters of agricultural products. Brazil’s agriculture is diverse and ranges from crops like soybeans, corn, and coffee to livestock like cattle and poultry. However, Brazil’s agriculture is often criticized for being heavily reliant on unsustainable practices like deforestation, monoculture, and the use of pesticides. The country faces a number of sustainability challenges, including deforestation, climate change, and inequality. Both nations demonstrate resemblances in their respective agricultural sectors. Agriculture plays a vital role in the economies of both The Netherlands and Brazil, as evidenced by their significant exports to foreign countries. Moreover, both countries face somewhat comparable sustainability challenges. Therefore, examining and contrasting the Dutch and Brazilian agricultural sectors is an intriguing prospect, focusing on how companies are differentially supported, the growth of the sector, expert opinions, particularly from financial analysts, and governmental approaches to the agricultural sector. As a result, the following main research question will be investigated during our stay in Brazil: What is the role of Brazilian organizations in promoting sustainable agricultural practices, and how do their economic and CSR strategies align with national and international sustainability goals in the agricultural sector? Exciting activities in Brazil Besides formal activities, the Studytour also includes many exciting informal activities to make sure that we can also see something of the beautiful Brazilian landscape and exciting culture. During the trip, we will for example visit the famous Brazilian Formula 1 circuit Autódromo José Carlos Pace, the Minhocão’s closure, Ibirapuera park and Meseu da Bolsa during our stay in Sao Paulo. After this, we will travel by nightbus to find ourselves in Rio de Janeiro within seven hours. During our stay in Rio, we will of course visit Crist the Redeemer, the Selaron stairs, Copacabana beach, Ipanema beach and watch the beautiful sunset from the sugarloaf mountain. It will thus be a promising trip which will have a lot to offer, and we are very curious about what these 2 weeks are going to bring. However, I just looked up the Brazilian weather and saw that it is going to be 25 degrees with only sun all day long, so I think that we will be just fine!
A board year as External Affairs of Asset | Accounting & Finance – Simo Smeets
For the Dutch version, click here As External Affairs, Simo is responsible for the contact with the current and future partners of Asset | Accounting & Finance. Next to this, he coordinates the Accounting Expedition Committee and the Orientation Committee. He is also responsible for the organization of the Master Experience Days Accountancy and Finance and the FinanceDays. In this article, Simo explains what his position entails and how he has experienced a year as External Affairs of Asset | Accounting & Finance. Who am I? My name is Simo Smeets and I am 22 years old. In the summer of 2020, I completed the Bachelor of Economics & Business Economics at Tilburg University. I am from South Limburg, but I have been living in Tilburg for almost four years now. After the TOP week, I immediately became a member of Asset, first as an active member of Asset | Economics, and later also at Asset | Accounting & Finance. Before my board year, I was part of the investment group A&F Investments and the Sports Committee within A&F. Why a board year? Even before my board year, I have always experienced my time at Asset as very pleasant. I soon found out that the events that Asset organizes connect well with the things that I find fun and important. The association offers students a nice mix between formal events, where companies introduce themselves in different ways, and informal events, where you can get to know fellow students better. I soon realized that I wanted to contribute to Asset myself. During the final year of my Bachelor, my orientation to choose the right master began. I found out that I doubted between the Master Accountancy, Financial Economics, and Finance. A board year at Asset | Accounting & Finance would help me to make a good assessment for the Master that I ultimately want to pursue and to develop myself. “Keeping each other up to date is very important to keep the ship sailing in the right direction.” Why External Affairs and what does a year like External Affairs look like? As External Affairs of Asset | Accounting & Finance, I am in close contact with many companies from the Financial sector. This is also the sector in which I expect to work after my Master’s. To make my choice for a Master, it is important to get to know different companies in the field. This has certainly happened during my board year. External Affairs is a position with many variations. No two days are the same. In the summer you start with the summer conversations. You introduce yourself to all partners and, together with your predecessor, tell them what will be organized during the new academic year. In this way, you get to know the companies quickly. You will make new contacts and improve your soft skills very much during this period. As time goes on and the General Members Meeting gets closer, your predecessor will let go more and more and you will have to do more work on your own. You notice that your professional skills get a boost during this period. You become the face of the association for partners and other stakeholders. Good cooperation with the winter External, in my case that was Evelien van den Broek in the first semester and now Myron Boere is of great importance. Every week you plan a meeting together with the winter External to discuss, in addition to the necessary informal things, the state of affairs regarding the business contact. Keeping each other up to date is very important to keep the ship sailing in the right direction. External Affairs in corona time When I applied as a board member at Asset | Accounting & Finance last year, we were already in the COVID-19 pandemic. I see it as an extra challenge to organize good events despite the necessary measures. We can conclude from the evaluations of participants of our events that we have certainly succeeded in that this year. In terms of formal events, I am proud of how we, together with the Accounting Expedition Committee, have put together a good online Accounting Expedition. Besides, it is important that we also continue to organize informal events, so that the social cohesion of our members is safeguarded. Naturally, the rules applicable at that time must be taken into consideration when organizing such events. Of course, I hope that next year the events can take place in a physical form again. During the first wave, our office, also called “the rooms” in many Asset members’ vocabulary, was unfortunately closed. Luckily, that decision was reversed at the beginning of 2021 and we can now work a few days a week from our office again. This makes it a lot more fun because you also meet the rest of the Asset board members from time to time. We are namely allowed to be present with a maximum of 15 board members per day. For me, this has been an enormous support. What do you do as External Affairs? As I briefly stated earlier in this article, you deal as External Affairs of Asset | Accounting & Finance with everything that concerns our partners. This involves the acquisition of partners for all our events and social media exposure and keeping our career portal Career Platform Tilburg up to date. As an External, it is important that you can bundle the opinions and goals of multiple stakeholders so that you keep everyone happy. As an External, you also have a seat in the Acquisition Meeting of Asset as a whole. This is a weekly meeting in which the external affairs of the entire Asset are discussed. This is often the most looking forward meeting because you always go in well prepared and have to come up with good arguments to achieve your goals. In addition to all these meetings, you are responsible for coordinating the Accounting Expedition Committee and the Orientation Committee. This
A board year as Secretary of Asset | Accounting & Finance – Martine Spaan
For the Dutch version, click here As Secretary of the Board, I am, among others, responsible for taking minutes during meetings, the in- and outgoing communication of the association, and the year planning. I have also organized the Audit Activity and I am coordinating the committees Faces-Online en Accounting Insight. In this article, I will tell you about my experiences during my year as Secretary of Asset | Accounting & Finance. Why did you choose to do a board year at Asset | Accounting & Finance? During my first year as a Business Economics student, I decided to become an active member of Asset | Marketing. I really enjoyed this, but during the course of my studies, I noticed that my interests were closer to accounting and finance. This led me to join Asset | Accounting & Finance as chairman of the Faces-Online committee. In my third year, I went on exchange to Australia (Want to know more? Read my article!). After this unforgettable experience, I had the desire to take on new challenges. A board year at Asset | Accounting & Finance seemed to be the perfect opportunity to further develop myself and to start my orientation into the possibilities within the accounting and finance sector. Moreover, this was a perfect opportunity for me to enjoy student life for another year. What does your board year look like? A board year is quite unique, to begin with, but the way my year has developed was unexpected, to say the least. I had the feeling that my conveyance period had only just ended, and I had just gotten used to the board life, when COVID-19 caused an unexpected turn of events. The University closed in March, causing us to continue our board work from home. This took some time to get used to, but it was definitely not impossible. Since then I have often gotten the question “What do you guys actually do nowadays?” a lot. It might seem that we were out of things to do, but this was quite the misconception. I even had the feeling that I had more work to do than before the pandemic hit. Even though our physical events were canceled, our work continued and we had to prepare for uncertain times. This led to quite an amount of online meetings from home via Google Meet. Fortunately, my committees were able to continue their work from home as well. This made it possible for us to keep posting articles every week on Faces-Online.nl and with the Accounting Insight committee we’re still busy organizing our accounting symposium which takes place on November 25. We have made some changes to the format, because the symposium will be livestreamed as well, which is a nice challenge in my opinion! Next to coordinating my committees, I spend a large portion of my time on internal affairs of our association, giving me a varied set of duties, like keeping track of all active and passive members, and being responsible for our Alumni Association. Next to my standard duties, I often help my fellow board members by giving critical notes on language use in the messages we spread and I help with the social media designs for our events. I also keep track of the task list and the weekly planning of the entire Board. Lastly, I am Vice-Secretary of Asset General and Vice-Treasurer of A&F, which means that I must be present at all meetings of the Audit of Accounts committee. During summer, when the COVID restrictions got lifted, I got the feeling that there was light at the end of the tunnel. This was also the time during which a lot of new association boards got announced, our own (partly new) Board included. The three newly announced boardies gave us extra motivation with their fresh perspective on board life. They, contrary to myself, have chosen to start their board year during this global crisis. Since then, we started seeing more and more members and other associations in person, which made the upcoming semester feel like a fresh start. Not without any setbacks of course. We anxiously watch every press conference, because any change in restrictions could have large consequences for our events every week. “We often have to deviate from our original formats and are required to think outside the box, because life has not really taken its ‘regular’ course this year.” What did you learn during your board year? You learn to discover, use, and improve your own and new personal skills. We learn a lot from and about each other within the Board as well. Everyone has his or her own strengths, and with good communication and teamwork, you learn to optimally use your combined strengths. One thing that I have learned specifically this past year, mostly because of COVID-19, is how important it is to adapt to crisis situations. For example, I developed my crisis management skills by continuously working on new scenarios and back-up plans, which requires a critical look at each situation and its risks. As a Board, we have a large responsibility towards our association, which comes with its own set of challenges and difficult decisions to make. This requires critical thinking, energy, and time spent on intense crisis management meetings. Especially when these meetings are held online, there is a need for these meetings to be as efficient as possible, because as Secretary, I know how busy everyone’s agenda is. This has taught me to prioritize, since some situations require me to put off my own work in order to help one of my fellow board members. As a Board, we also want to get the bottom out of the barrel, for ourselves, but even more for our members and partner companies. Especially in a year like this, there is a lot of room to come up with creative ideas. We often have to deviate from our original formats and are required to think outside the box, because life has
A board year at Asset | Accounting & Finance – Shaiana Cripaul, Treasurer
My bachelor was coming to an end and I had to think about what I wanted to do for the upcoming year. I didn’t want to start my master yet but how would I fill a gap year? I was thinking about traveling or doing a board year. After I was asked for a board year at Asset | Accounting & Finance I decided that I wanted to do that. In July the transitional period started. Unfortunately, I still had to do a resit that month but luckily for me the transitional period in the summer is longer than in the winter. One of the things I quickly learned was that Twinfield would be my best friend during my board year. Twinfield is the accounting program of our study association. As treasurer I’m responsible for all money matters. This means that I book and pay all the invoices and besides that I also sent all the invoices to the companies. It is also my job to run debt collections after events in order to collect the participants fee. In addition I am the treasurer of the Alumni Association Financials and the Financial Association Netherlands (FAN). The FAN is an association that consists of five financial study associations from five different cities. My tasks are the same for both, only for the FAN I have to declare taxes. Every board member coordinates a few committees. The committee that I coordinate are the Lustrum Committee, Investment Night Committee and the Promotional Committee. This year Asset | Accounting & Finance celebrates its 4th lustrum and it is my job, together with the committee, to make this lustrum a great succes. The committee already started in February and my predecessor Iris, was the coordinator of this committee back then. In the summer I became the coordinator of this committee. At first it was quite difficult to coordinate this committee because the committee was used to cooperate without me and because a lot of stuff about the lustrum was already decided. Despite that, still a lot of things had to be decided. Especially coming up with activities and decorations is what made this committee so much fun. As mentioned before, I also coordinate the Investment Night committee. This committee organizes a symposium for everyone who has affinity with investing. Every year it is a challenge to arrange speakers and partners for this event. That makes coordinating this committee enjoyable and it gives a huge boost when a partner or speaker is fixed. Lastly, I am the coordinator of the promotional committee. This committee is responsible for keeping track of the competition between the committees, organizing the dinners at the end of the semesters and also the CSR activity. Coordinating the committees is very diversified. Every committee is different and therefore needs different guidance. “In the past few months I have learned a lot, such as how to make balance sheets and profit and loss statements, but also how to cooperate, be critical and above all I have developed myself professionally.” As treasurer you also attend the treasurers meeting of Asset every week. In this meeting all the treasurers from each Asset department take place. During these meetings we collectively decide about Asset’s money. For instance, we decide on whether to make new investments, such as the creation of a completely new website last year. As is known about a board year, there are many evening activities. Before you even notice, three nights a week are fully planned. Of course this can be exhausting sometimes, but the activities are actually always fun. Therefore, the weekends are a moment of rest in which I can fully recover. Last month we had the semi-annual general members meeting. This also meant that three board members had to make room for the new board members. At that moment, it feels weird that half of the board is switching. However, the advantage of this semi-annual switch is the new fresh energy that appears from the three new board members. While writing this article, I am just realising how fast the past couple of months have flown by. Soon, the board applications will open and then my successor will quickly be announced. Until this very day, I haven’t had a feeling of regret about my board year. In the past few months I have learned a lot, such as how to create balance sheets and profit and loss statements, but also how to cooperate, be critical and above all I have developed myself professionally. If you want to know more about my board year after this article or if you are in doubt about doing a board year, visit room E107!