Maurice de Hond

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Maurice de Hond (born 8 October 1947, Amsterdam) is a Dutch opinion poller and entrepreneur.

[edit] Career

De Hond studied social geography at the University of Amsterdam, obtaining a degree in 1971. He worked for the university, as assistant with the Sociaal Geografisch Instituut, but became a project leader for Interview-NSS in 1973. He founded Cebeon with Hedy d'Ancona in 1975, a market research firm targeting the non-profit sector, which he left in 1980 to become a director at Interview-NSS, later a commissioner until 1999. Starting in the mid-80s, De Hond started doing consultancy work for various companies, including Vendex, ITT and Wegener. In 1998, he was one of the founders of Newconomy, an internet start-up, which after a stock exchange listing in 2000, saw a market cap of €400 million, but sequently lost much of its market value. Eventually, De Hond has to resign from his leadership position. He now polls through his own company, and internet site Peil.nl.

[edit] Deventer murder case

Since 2005, De Hond campaigned to reopen a murder case that happened in the Dutch city of Deventer. De Hond believed that a fiscal jurist, Ernest Louwes, was wrongfully convicted, and that a handyman of the murdered woman, Michaël de Jong, was behind the murder. De Hond led his own investigation into the matter, but a subsequent investigation by the public prosecutors found no reason to reopen the case. De Jong brought De Hond to court over his allegations, which De Hond refused to subside after the matter was closed. A Dutch court found De Hond at fault in continuation of his allegations, after which De Hond was reprimanded and forced to pay De Jong and his girlfriend over €100,000.^[1]^[2]^[3]