Wennink’s warning

Could it have been a pinprick directed at Prime Minister Rutte, Peter Wennink’s speech at the opening of the academic year at Eindhoven University of Technology? As the PM who contends that vision is the domain of ophthalmologists is on his way out, the ASML CEO lamented the country’s lack of vision on the future. Europe and the Netherlands need a coherent master plan to cope with the major transitions of the times: digitalization, climate change and an aging population, he said. Not only because these problems urgently need solutions, but also because they offer economic opportunities. If we don’t act now, value will soon be created elsewhere in the world, Wennink warned. Our earning power is at stake.

CEOs nearing retirement tend to become more outspoken on societal issues. They foretell disaster and catastrophe, unless. The phrase “fat, dumb and happy” that fell from Wennink’s lips, for example, was used as early as 1981 by US Secretary of Commerce Malcolm Baldrige. He, too, warned that American managers had been sitting back far too long and were in danger of being blown away by foreign competition.