Wynand Bodewes

Since January 16, Wynand Bodewes has been the Academic Director of the Entrepreneurship & Business Innovation Bachelor. He is responsible for this new Bachelor, that will be launched on September 1, 2020. I interview him in his office on the 8th floor of Koopmans building. An ordinary, average office with one striking detail: in the corner of the room, there is a special bookcase that looks like a pile of books two meters high. We'll get to talk about it later, but first he talks about his career, what drives him, and what is special about this Bachelor.

By  Annemeike Tan

When I look at your CV, it seems that entrepreneurship is the common thread. How come?

Entrepreneurship is indeed a common thread in my career, but this was not a preconceived plan. After an initial degree in Chemical Engineering, followed by a Business Administration Master’s in Groningen, I started with a PhD project in Rotterdam in the field of innovation management. Towards the end of that project, I began teaching Strategic Management, and from that position, I went on to teach entrepreneurship – thanks to a request by students. Following a subsidy from the Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture and Science to stimulate entrepreneurship education in the Netherlands, I had the opportunity to set up eShip (the Center for Entrepreneurship of the Rotterdam School of Management) together with a colleague in 2001. I was able to introduce an Entrepreneurship specialization track in the part-time Master of Business Administration (MScBA) at RSM and, soon after that, a entrepreneurship master program. At the time, it was the first Entrepreneurship Master’s program in the Netherlands that did not connect entrepreneurship to SME management. In Rotterdam, we used to say that ‘small’ was a phase that you simply had to go through as an entrepreneur (with RSM alumni Pieter Zwart (Coolblue) and Michiel Muller (Picnic) as role models).

In the last few years at RSM, I was also affiliated to the Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences as a professor (in Dutch: Lector) in Innovative Entrepreneurship. After I left RSM, I continued to develop and provide entrepreneurship courses and curricula. First at Maastricht University, where I was able to introduce a 30 ECTS minor in Entrepreneurship, and compulsory or elective entreprneurship courses in Bachelor’s and Master’s programs at almost all Schools/Faculties. At that time, I also taught at the KU Leuven, where I helped develop the Technology & Entrepreneurship Major of the Business Engineering Master’s program. In the past three years, I have worked for the Maastricht School of Management, a private business school where I could teach all over the world, and now at Tilburg University. Before summer, I helped out with the accreditation process of the E&BI Bachelor’s program which helped me to get to know the School and my future colleagues. I’m glad I made the switch: TiSEM is a good school and there is a strong research program with a clear vision on entrepreneurship and innovation. It is a challenge for me to bring a three-year program to fruition. I have done that for 30 ECTS Minors and a 60 ECTS Master’s program but a three-year program, that is new to me. Also, more than in my previous teaching positions, I now work together with colleagues from multiple Schools and Departments to co-create education.

Who is your role model?

I had an uncle who meant a lot to me. When I was graduating in Maastricht, he was a part-time professor there. He encouraged me to get my PhD and not to choose the easiest route. I went to RSM because of him. He was an excellent researcher as well as a respected teacher. His enthusiasm for teaching inspired me. As regards employers, I followed in his footsteps: after Maastricht, he started working for RSM and his last place of work in the Netherlands was here in Tilburg. Although he combined that with a job at the Wharton School (UPenn).

What is important to you in education?

When I started to develop entrepreneurship education and teach on the subject, I decided to work together as much as possible with entrepreneurs. I wanted to bring the outside, i.e. the perspectives of entrepreneurs and investors, into the classroom. It is not only important for students to come into contact with entrepreneurs: the entrepreneurs themselves are also interested to learn something about underlying theories. Often they immediately see the added value and convey this message to the students.

There have always been students who do not finish their studies because they had already started an enterprise while at university. That’s a pity. By showing the relevance of theory to practice in the E&BI program, I hope that those students who already have a company of their own will be motivated by the curriculum to finish their program. For one thing, students are allowed to use their graduation project for the benefit of their own business or somebody else’s, as long as their thesis is academically sound.

For me, it is about the entrepreneurial process and the role of innovation in it. It's not about someone becoming a founder/owner of a company. Entrepreneurship and innovation are about creating new value and that can be in a start-up, but also in a scale-up, or a multinational.

What is the ideal profile of the student who opts for this program?

They are the students who, already during their high school years, more often than their classmates, had all kinds of ideas that they wanted to act on. I'm looking for students who are enterprising, students who aren’t afraid to be contrary, maybe even a little rebellious. That’s the kind of people that companies are looking for as drivers of innovative projects. Entrepreneurs often start out in pairs, one of whom ‘minds the store’ while the other takes care of the outside contacts. Both types are important for a company and I want to have both types in the program: besides the go-getters also the ones who are more reflective, who want to have the house in order, and who can act as the devil’s advocate.

I understand that this new Bachelor’s program embraces the principles of the Tilburg Educational Profile. Can you give us an idea of how this was done?

For every course, we indicated in what way attention will be given to knowledge, skills, and character. Students also work on character in almost all courses. Character development is also taken into account in formative and summative assessments.

In many courses, in addition to the focus on academic insights, the emphasis is on developing skills, for example, in the ‘Entrepreneurship in Action’ courses. It is a series of hands-on courses, in which you learn by doing and by reflecting on what you do. While at Tilburg University, our students look for contact with the world around them. First with companies and institutions in Tilburg; later their range of action becomes larger and larger. Students learn to push their limits, literally and figuratively. In the program, there is also explicit attention for social and ecological entrepreneurship. At the Open Days, we notice that there is a lot of interest from prospective students.

What is so special about this Bachelor?

This is the first academic Bachelor’s program in the Netherlands that focuses fully on entrepreneurship and innovation. In universities of applied sciences programs that focus on entrepreneurship, the emphasis is more on small businesses management and much less on embedding what is taught in scientific insights. We ask our students not only to do but also to think, to understand how science can strengthen the practice of innovation and entrepreneurship. This Bachelor is not about SMEs but about the dynamics of innovation and entrepreneurship: seeing opportunities, seizing opportunities, and continuously searching for new opportunities.

Finally: are you an entrepreneur yourself?

Good question! When you teach strategic management, such a question about your own practical experience with board room consulting or board room decision making will not be asked. But as soon as I began to teach entrepreneurship, that question kept coming up. That is why I started an enterprise in Rotterdam at the time. Registering with a Chamber of Commerce is a matter of minutes, but that does not mean you are economically active. After I more or less accidentally stumbled upon an Italian design book case, I started importing and selling them online. It proved to be successful, even though you could buy the same book case in a physical shop and (often) at a lower price. My edge was that I could deliver from stock, unlike the physical stores that have a four-week delivery time for furniture. People were prepared to pay more for a bookcase if they could have it at their disposal immediately. Over the years I sold a few hundred, but when a German webshop started offering them at a price that I could not compete with, I stopped selling them. But that Chamber of Commerce registration is still active, so who knows, maybe I’ll take up something new.

My impression, after the interview, is that Wynand fits the profile that he sketched of the Entrepreneurship & Business Innovation Bachelor’s student to a T. With one last look at the beautiful bookcase – that I can no longer order from Wynand – I leave the room.

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