Keynote Speaker Professor Roel Bekker is a lawyer by training. He graduated in 1970 at the University of Groningen, The Netherlands. He has had a long career in government, as civil servant in the ministry for Housing, Physical Planning and Environment before he became - in 1992 - partner of a private consultancy firm.

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In 1998 he returned to the government, to become Secretary General of the ministry of Health. In 2007 he was appointed as Secretary General for Government Reform in the Netherlands, responsible for the implementation of a very ambitious plan to reduce the size of the government and to increase performance and quality. In 2008 Professor Bekker was also appointed as Professor for Employment Relations in Government at the University of Leiden (Albeda Chair).

Professor Bekker will give a presentation of the history of Dutch Government Reform in the past 30 years and outline the present program for the reform in the Netherlands. He will make a comparison between the Dutch approach and reforms in nine other OECD countries, based upon a comparative survey of the OECD, commissioned by the Dutch Government. This survey will be presented in 2009 and provides comparative information about size, performance etc. in different countries. He will conclude his presentation by drawing lessons for future public administrations.