Mr. EP Rhuggenaath succeeds Koen Davidse, who has held the position in Washington DC for the past five years and becomes Director General of Policy at the Department of Defense. Rhuggenaath’s appointment is final after approval by the other constituency countries. He will take office in November for a four-year term.
Rhuggenaath has more than 10 years of experience as a political administrator, most recently as Prime Minister (2017-2021), Minister of Education, Culture and Sport (2020) and Minister of Economic Development (2015-2017) of Curaçao. He also has extensive experience in the private sector, including as a director at various institutions in the international financial services sector. He studied business administration at the University of Miami and obtained his MBA at the Erasmus University in Rotterdam.
The World Bank is the only globally operating international financial institution where the Netherlands has a permanent seat on the Board of Directors. The Executive Director is responsible for all parts of the World Bank Group on behalf of the constituency. In addition to the Netherlands, the constituency consists of Armenia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Georgia, Israel, North Macedonia, Moldavia, Montenegro, Romania and Ukraine.
As usual, the vacancy was widely publicized so that everyone could apply. This is not an appointment to an ABD position, but it has been established with a procedure similar to that for positions within the General Administrative Service.