Dr. Bert Twaalfhoven, founder EFER and Former President of Indivers B.V.graduated from Fordham University/New York in 1952 with a B.Sc. and received his MBA at Harvard Business School in 1954. In 1993 Dr. Twaalfhoven received an honorary doctorate from Fordham University for his achievements in the area of education and as an international entrepreneur. Dr. Twaalfhoven is former chairman of Harvard Business School Alumni and on June 2, 2001 he received the Annual Alumni Award from Harvard Business School for his activities stimulating entrepreneurship in Eastern and Western Europe.

Dr. Twaalfhoven through Indivers started 54 companies in 11 countries including Italy, France, Germany, Russia, Ukraine, Holland, Belgium, England, U.S.A. Singapore and China. Most companies were successful, 17 ventures failed. Twaalfhoven was also co-founder of the first venture capital company in the Netherlands (Gilde) and has participations in several venture capital companies. In 1978 he received the “Koning Willem I” Award from Z.K.H. Prince Bernard. In addition to being an entrepreneur, Dr. Twaalfhoven is active in many capacities in international networks of universities and entrepreneurs, especially the promotion of dynamic growth entrepreneurs. He is Founder and President of the European Foundation for Entrepreneurship research (EFER), initiator of EASDAQ.

1987 he founded with the support of Harvard EU and many Harvard Alumni the European Foundation for Entrepreneurship Research (EFER). Its mission is to promote entrepreneurship at universities and business schools. In 1989-2000 with the opening of the New Europe EFER organized conference across Eastern Europe in particular he supported in Slovenia the GEA College of Entrepreneurship.

As a result of a comparative survey we concluded a shortage at European universities of at least 500 professors in entrepreneurship. Twaalfhoven presented these findings in two speeches with Commissioner Liikanen in Leuven and later in Greece. 2005-2008 EFER and Twaalfhoven sponsored at Harvard Business School a one-week programme to train academia from Europe. Over these four years 250 professors from 116 universities and 38 countries have attended this one-week programme.

A new activity was to teach 1,000 Chinese children how to sail, in preparation for the Olympics in 2008. Bert & Maria Twaalfhoven live in Hilversum, Holland and have 8 children (5 MBA’s, 3 engineers). They have 22 grandchildren. They ski – sail – paint and collect 17th century maps when New York was called “New Netherlands” and Cape Cod “New Holland”. 5 of the Twaalfhoven 2nd generation are entrepreneur.