ICP Board

Alexander van Noort is the Country Manager for Schlumberger in the Netherlands and Denmark since September 2012. His career with Schlumberger started in January 1999 in Italy and included assignments in France, West-Africa, Jakarta, Romania, Kazakhstan, Houston and the Netherlands.

He graduated with a MsC degree in Mining and Petroleum Engineering from Delft Technical University and has a MsC-degree in Oil and Gas Industry Management, Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh, United Kingdom.

Jeroen Drost is CEO of NIBC Bank since May 1, 2008. Before that he worked 22 years for ABN AMRO Bank in a wide variety of jobs, lastly as CEO of Asia.
Jeroen holds MSc Degrees in Business Law and Business Economics, both from Erasmus Univeristy Rotterdam.

He is married and has 2 sons. Hobbies include golf, bridge.

Ms. Silvana Arbia (Italy) was elected on 28 February 2008 as the new Registrar for a five-year term.
Ms. Arbia has extensive experience in international law, criminal law, and the judicial management aspects of international criminal law. Prior to joining the ICC, she was the Chief of Prosecutions at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), before which she was a Senior Trial Attorney and Acting Chief of Prosecutions in the Office of the Prosecutor, and led the prosecution of important cases before the ICTR.
Furthermore, Ms. Arbia participated in the drafting of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court as a member of Italian delegation at the 1998 Diplomatic Conference in Rome.
Ms. Arbia holds a Laurea in Law from Padova University, Italy, and is a professional judge in Italy. She has published several essays and books on human rights and children’s rights.

Franco Ongaro took up duty as ESA Director of Technical and Quality Management and Head of ESTEC on 1 April 2011. Franco Ongaro graduated as a Doctor of Aeronautical Engineering from the University Politecnico of Milan. In 1987 he joined ESA in Paris on the Columbus project. In 1988, he moved to ESTEC in the Netherlands as Head of the Columbus Payload Interfaces Unit.

In 1994, Franco Ongaro moved back to HQ as General Studies Programme Manager. In 2001, he initiated and managed the start of the Aurora exploration programme until 2005, when he became head of the ESA Advanced Concepts and Technology Planning Department.

From 2007, he led the preparation and implementation of the Iris programme to develop a 'satcom' component for air traffic management. In 2009 he became Head of the Telecom Technologies, Products and Systems Department at ESTEC. From 1994 until 2009, he taught a one-semester graduate course in spacecraft design at the University Politecnico of Milan.

Koen Gijsbers was designated as General Manager of the new NATO Communications & Information Agency after a military career of 35 years.

He attended the Royal Military Academy in 1976. In 1980 he was commissioned into the Corps of Engineers. In 1999 he was deployed to the NATO mission in Kosovo. In 2003 he took command of 11 Air Manoeuvre Brigade. In 2006 he was appointed Assistant Chief of Staff for NATO’s Command, Control, Communications, Computers and Intelligence in Norfolk, USA. In 2009 he became responsible for IT and business management policy at the Dutch Ministry of Defence. Koen Gijsbers holds a Master degree in Military Art and Science of the US Army Command and General Staff College.

During his Military Academy studies, Koen Gijsbers was a good athlete at 400m and 800m running. He attended the Olympics in Moscow (1980). He still holds the Dutch Record of 4*400m relay.

Imre Csoti has more than 30 years experience in the engineering and construction industry and has been based in The Netherlands for 25 years. After graduation he embarked on a career in the engineering and project management of large scale process industry facilities. He joined CB&I in The Hague in 2001 and has worked in both project and line management roles. In March 2011 he was appointed Director of The Hague office which executes projects for its clients across Europe, Africa, the Middle East, Russia and India.

Imre graduated with a BSc. in Mechanical Engineering from Imperial College (University of London) in 1979 and is a Chartered Engineer; he was awarded an MBA from the University of Warwick Business School in 1999 and lives in The Hague with his wife and 2 daughters.

Dick Benschop was born in Driebergen. He holds a degree in history from the Free University of Amsterdam. As Dutch State Secretary for Foreign Affairs (1998—2002), his main area of responsibility was European integration. Before that, he worked as an assistant to the former Dutch Prime Minister Wim Kok, was director of the Dutch Labour Party (PvdA ) offices, ran his own consultancy firm and was Media Commissioner.

In 2003 he started at Shell Energy Europe. In 2006 he managed the Gas & Power business in Malaysia. He is currently the President Director of Shell Nederland B.V.

After studying languages, philosophy and business management at university, Nicole has worked in business (Getronics including client management for Shell), government (the Ministry of Justice) and education (company secretary for Hogeschool Inholland).

Working in these different areas has given Nicole the passion to work on creating sustainable links between both recognisable and perhaps less obvious partners: public and private, local and national, international, hard and soft.

Through this work, Nicole has built up a network of contacts from the worlds of local and national government, the civil service, international organizations and embassies, the world of business and education.

In October 2006 she was awarded The Hague Medium & Small-sized Business organization (MKB Den Haag) JoBobo trophy for young networkers. Deputy-Mayor Henk Kool praised the prominent role she had played in bringing established and budding business people and entrepreneurs together in The Hague.

One of her key strengths in her success is getting projects off the ground and running, turning ideas into actions and concrete products.