Financial Business Dinner 2017: Looking Back

My name is Laura Galiart and I took part, as treasurer of the Financial Business Dinner 2017, in the organization of this inspiring event! I look back on a successful organization and edition.

I formed a committee together with Iris Uijttewaal (chairman), Kirsty van Belzen (external affairs) and David Meijer (secretary) that would organize the Financial Business Dinner 2017. In total 15 companies and 60 students participated in this dinner. The preparations started in February. As treasurer, I was responsible for drawing up the budget. As soon as the budget was drawn up, the time to brainstorm about the event started. We discussed potential locations, we looked for the nicest designs for the flyers and we thought about the promotion material. It turned out that the ‘FBD bonbons’ were the most successful promotion material in history of the Financial Business Dinner. As soon as the participating companies were all known, we were able to start with our promotion.

“You have to work hard and you will face time pressure, but you will learn a lot.”

During this year’s edition, the event was completely focused on finance. Previously, there was a selection of accounting and finance companies, whereas this year only finance companies could participate. This was a little bit exciting, as this dinner would be less attractive to accounting focused students. Nonetheless, we still attracted very interesting companies. ABN Amro, Ahold Delhaize, Achmea, CZ, PostNL, ING, Jumbo, First Dutch, Rembrandt Fusies & Overnames, Van Lanschot Kempen, Fagro, KLM, FrieslandCampina, ExxonMobil and KPMG were the participating companies. To present the CVs of the best students, it was crucial to motivate students to register themselves. We had to design and print flyers, gather video material and order many bonbons to hand out during lecture talks. Multiple times a week, I did a lecture talk to motivate students once again to register. Even though it can be quite scary at first to present in front of a large group of students, I think this was one of the nicest (but most time-consuming) things to do. The students of de minor & (pre-)master finance and the minor & (pre-)master Accounting could not avoid the promotion of Financial Business Dinner 2017, which resulted in many registrations. Our promotion strategy really worked! We reached a record number of registrations and the quality of de CVs were very high.

After the registration deadline, it was time for the real deal, which was also the busiest period. The CVs of students were gathered and sent to the companies. The companies would then send back their top 10 of students that they would like to see during the dinner. We took care of the division of students/companies and kept every preference in mind. This way, the companies would speak to the students they were interested in. In this period, it is really important as committee to work together and to support each other. Behind the scenes, many things needed to be done, such as composing the goodie bags, communicating the menu choices, making the name tags and informing all students and so on. You have to work hard and you will face time pressure, but you will learn a lot.

On the day itself, Thursday September 28, everything fell in place after all the hard work. After a short speech of our chairman Iris, the four course dinner started. The students saw different companies each course, so they were able to talk to four companies in total. The staff at Hofstede de Blaak did an excellent job, as the evening went smoothly and flawless. Of course we could also enjoy the four course dinner ourselves. After the dessert, Krijn van den Broek (chairman Asset | Accounting & Finance) and Iris said their word of thanks. We ended the evening with a drink, where we received many positive responses from students as well as from companies!

I am looking back on a very successful edition, during which I have learnt a lot. Without our coordinator Roel and chairman Iris, it wouldn’t be such a great success. Hereby I would like to thank them for their dedication!