CNBC Business | Neelie Kroes

Neelie Kroes

The EU's Competition enforcer and Europe's Iron Lady is certainly not afraid of a challenge, Simon Hobbs reports

The European Commissioner for Competition since 2004, Neelie Kroes is perhaps the most powerful women in European business and is best known for overseeing the EU’s record fining of Microsoft in march. With an academic background in economics, she became an MP for the People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD), Dutch State Secretary and Minister of Transport and Water Management, when she oversaw privatisation of the post and phone services and the commissioning of the Betuwe freight railway from Rotterdam to Germany.

Simon Hobbs: What sort of a leader are you?

Neelie Kroes: The kind that operates in a team. To foster this I am clear cut and don’t repeat myself. With me you get what you see.

SH: You were born in 1941 in Rotterdam at the height of World War Two. Eventually you went on to study economics at Erasmus University, doing a Masters and then working as a research fellow for six years. How did you end up in politics?

NK: I thought there was something rotten in the state! It wasn’t efficient, it wasn’t effective. Whatever I did in the university – writing nice articles or giving speeches – it didn’t actually change anything. Neither in the business world nor in the academic world were things changing – it was all influenced by politics. So I joined politics.

SH: You spent your thirties and early forties in parliament as an MP. Was it easy for you to join as a junior minister? You were essentially working alone as an academic and now you were responsible for teams.

NK: Point taken, but I was highly educated in economics and was the only person in my party with specialist knowledge in that field.

SH: You became known for pushing through huge privitisation policies – how would you describe yourself in this period?

NK: At that time, I was what we call “cursing in the church”. My own party was backing me and was absolutely pro-market; however, several other parties weren’t favouring this approach so I had to do a lot of explaining and convincing. I had to form a team, which included, for example, the trade unions, academics, business people, and drive them all step by step to the decision-making process. That was very difficult.

SH: Is it true that you had this meteoric rise, then just before you turned 50 you felt, maybe for the first time, that you were getting shut out of good jobs by the old-boys network?

NK: Yes, it was true and the old-boys network was very Dutch-oriented. I did receive lots of offers from firms outside the Netherlands.

SH: How did you move through that period?

NK: I didn’t accept the offers from other countries because my ex-husband said that we would split up if I did. At the end of the day it wasn’t a bad experience – rather a wake-up call to myself. Quite a few woman are still facing this type of discrimination. In fact, José Manuel Barroso, president of the European Commission, instigated a quota so a certain number of women commissioners were appointed and I was one of them.

SH: So you are in favour of quotas?

NK: Of course, it would be great if we didn’t need them because the best person was always appointed regardless of gender. But that isn’t how it works and I don’t believe in eternal life, so I could wait and wait and it will not happen! In the meantime generations are lost and we need all our talent.

SH: When you were 59, there was an explosion in the number of private sector supervisory boards that you sat on, including Volvo. How did you approach those jobs?

NK: Of course, it was a challenging and diverse global portfolio. I enjoyed it – the mix of management styles and experiences.

SH: So how did you ditch all that and come to your position as EU commissioner in your early sixties, a time when many people are planning for a more leisurely life.

NK: The government and my party asked me and originally I said it was five to ten years too late. But they said they needed me and they knew that Barroso needed a female commissioner.

SH: On your appointment, some criticised you as having too commercial a background. In fact, you’ve been quite tough on businesses – do you think you’ve overcompensated?

NK: No.

SH: Seven months before you arrived, your predecessor had slapped Microsoft with a €497m unfair competition fine. When you came into the job, how did you decide to engage with this issue?

NK: It was a long and intense debate to decide how to approach this situation and our resources were not endless.

SH: But you also admired Bill Gates in the past and is it not the case that a company as innovative as Microsoft will always bump up against the regulator?

NK: You can have respect for someone but at the same time there are limitations on what is acceptable. At the end of the day, blocking innovation for other companies is wrong.

SH: And how do you approach negotiation?

NK: I truly believe that if you make personal contact with someone you will gain a lot more information and ascertain the essence a person has in how he or she does business.

SH: What leadership lessons have you learned from Microsoft?

NK: It is a tremendous and important organisation. It is sophisticated and people are highly evolved in their jobs, knowledge and innovation. They have to be aware, that when the EU competition authority is making a certain judgement then they have to follow it – and that is a bit fraught. It’s not always enough to have a one-to-one discussion.

SH: And what would you feel if Microsoft purchased Yahoo?

NK: That would be a new case for us.

The Leaders
This weekly show, hosted by award-winning presenter Simon Hobbs, features interviews with influential leaders from the worlds of business, politics and beyond. How do these leaders define leadership? What motivates them? How did they arrive at key decisions in their career? Filmed on location, The Leaders reveals what drives the top business and political talent.

To view Simon Hobbs’ interview with Neelie Kroes or with other interviewees go to www.CNBC.com