Alexander Hendrik George Rinnooy Kan (5 October 1949) is a Dutch mathematician and business leader. The Dutch newspaper de Volkskrant named him the most influential man in the Netherlands in 2007, 2008 and 2009.[1]
Since 1 August 2006, he president of the Dutch Social-Economic Council (in which he is crown-appointed member). From 1991 until 1996, he was president of the employers federation VNO and, after the merger with NCW, of the VNO-NCW.[2]
Alexander Rinnooy Kan is a member of the political party D66 and the innovatieplatform.
Rinnooy Kan grew up in The Hague. He graduated in mathematics at Leiden University in 1972. In the same year he obtained his B.Sc. degree in econometrics from the University of Amsterdam. In 1972-73, he worked as a mathematician at Spectrum Encyclopedia. From 1973 until 1977 he was a scientific employee in Mathematics and Statistics at Delft University of Technology (then Delft Technical College). During this period, in 1976, he obtained a Ph.D.-degree in mathematics at the University of Amsterdam.
In 1977, he went to the Erasmus University Rotterdam, where he became a full professor in Operations Research in 1980 at the age of 30. In 1983, he was appointed head of the econometric institute, and in 1986 rector magnificus of the university. In the meantime, he was visiting professor at the University of California at Berkeley and MIT, amongst others.[2]