Imagine that you are Willem van Duin, CEO of a Dutch
insurance company.
A company which has become the largest insurance company in The
Netherlands through an endless series of mergers and acquisitions?
And imagine that ‘Eight million people in The
Netherlands are insured by (at least) one of the brands of your company’, as you
state so proudly on your corporate website? And that your company exists 200
years in 2011?
Is it time to throw a party then?! Oh yeah, it is definitely
time to throw a party!
And do you invite some really inspirational guests then, which
can firmly send your party into ‘the World Series of corporate parties’?! You
betcha!
Not those boring local heroes, with their old and excessively exploited, boring stories
and their boring charisma! No, heck, you throw in a real name!
Someone that everybody knows and with a charisma and
stamina that fills up a whole convention centre. Someone, whose flamboyant personality illuminates your
insurance company and lifts it to a whole different level.
Heck yeah! You invite…
Bill Clinton. It costs some, but then you have some…
And so did Achmea, the Dutch insurance company in question, on May
28th, 2011. They ‘invited’ Bill Clinton to go on an expedition to a Frisian
polder hamlet, called Achlum.
A tiny village, but with a big attitude!
And boy, had it been a party. Bill Clinton had litterally speeched
his
heart out upon various subjects:
The
theme of Clinton’s speech is maintaining solidarity in the 21st century. He
discusses the ‘zeitgeist’. People have never been so mutually dependent. Never
in a time there has been so much traveling. ‘The information for which I had to
do a full university study, can be found by a child on the internet within 30
seconds’.
Clinton
emphasizes the similarities between people. “Most people descent from the same,
small group of Africans. Research has disclosed that just 1 to 4 percent of
human DNA originates from the Neanderthal people. My wife and daughter were not
at all surprised, however, that I’m one of those Neanderthals”.
After Clinton’s impassioned speech, Achmea's CEO Willem van Duin almost exploded with feelings of
pride and victory. Former president Bill Clinton and Willem van Duin at one stage. Touchdown!!!!
Obviously, he took his chance to throw in a few questions.
Willem
van Duin: “How should we
convince people that there is a strong self-interest in solidarity?”
Clinton
responds with the example of Greece. “When the economy was doing fine, the success
of the euro was skyrocketing. Nevertheless, in case of an emerging crisis, as it happened in 2008, the poorest countries are traditionally
the first victims of it. That is no problem in the United States, as
the national government can support those poorest states. However, this is
different in Europe”.
Clinton
does not want to tell the European people what to do, except: “In the long run, cooperation
will always beat conflict and large will always beat small. We do not have any other
option than to enlarge our sense of community. This is how the human race has
always survived”.
The sheer presence and the speech of Bill Clinton had been a mindboggling
success for Achmea. ‘Veni, vidi, vici’ (i.e. “I came, saw and conquered”) in
full Julius Caesar style. In the Frysian polder… Can you believe it?!
Achlum,
this tiny Frisian hamlet, had been history in the making that very day in May, 2011…
Last week on 26 June 2014 and a little over three years after
the event, the Washington Post published an
overview of Bill Clinton’s most lucrative speeches in an article called ’How
the Clintons went from ‘dead broke’ to rich’. And on a prominent fourth position
in the top ten list of this overview, there was a tiny Frisian town that we
know all too well now!
 |
| A screen shot of the article in the WaPo Picture courtesy of: Washington Post Click to enlarge |
Willem van Duin of Achmea cursed, when he was informed
about the article in the Washington Post. He knew that hell would break loose
on him in this tiny and envious country, called The Netherlands, where
everybody was jealous about one’s success and pizazz.
“Heck
yeah! Clinton was expensive with his $600,000 speech! [i.e.
€440,000 - EL] But if the price ain't right, this kind of people simply doesn't show up."
Still, Van Duin knew that Clinton had been worth every
cent that he paid for him.
“Every
darn cent! Besides that, these are simple expenses, which are divided among all these eight million customers! And what is €0.06 per
customer anyway?! It is nothing! It really isn’t! So get off my back, please!!!”
And later he fell asleep and dreamt of Bill Clinton and
him: on that stage in Achlum in 2011. And in his sleep, he put a glorious smile on his
face…
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