The Chairman

Hi everyone! My name is Lotte and I am the Chairman of the 51st board of Kraket. Initially, I wanted to go for board 52, but I was way too excited so I decided to give it a try a year earlier. The past few months have been memorable and I can honestly say that I have learned so much in such a short period of time. 

As a Chairman, I am responsible for leading the General Assembly and the board meetings. I have to make sure the meetings are efficient, but I also have to give everyone the chance to speak up. Finding the balance is a challenge, but it is a lot of fun to improve each meeting. 

I am also the person who keeps in touch with the university and the brother- and sister associations. I walk into the faculty quite a lot for a chat and I make sure that the ‘important people of the SBE’ like us, so we get a serious seat at the table. I also have to secure that seat at the table in Stichting LOES, with whom I meet every once in a while to discuss things like LED, LEST and Econometrie.nl. I keep in touch with the other associations at all time, so I can see where Kraket can learn from them to improve our association. The others learn from our association from time to time as well!

Being a Chair, the biggest challenge for me is to manage people and get all the noses to point in the same direction. It really is my main responsibility to keep everyone in the association, but especially the board, happy with Kraket. When getting things done, everyone has their own preferences on how to approach them, so I have to give everyone a personal treatment. Finding the balance between the task-based approach and the people-based approach is a really fun challenge and I have learned so much from it already. In the end, I want to get stuff done, but the people always come first. 

The best thing about being a Chairman is that I get to represent Kraket to the world and keep in touch with the people who are very important for Kraket. I wear my suit with a lot of pride and I love to show that pride to the world. I really think that econometricians are the best kind of people and leading an association consisting of exactly those people is nothing but fun. 

When applying for the boardyear, I had no doubts that this function would suit me.The things like presentations at graduation ceremonies and speeches at the Cobos suit me very well. Getting a seat at the table for Kraket was also not hard for me, since I really speak my mind and share my opinion when I feel like I have to. I also thought I was a natural leader, but in reality it surprised me how big of a challenge it was to keep everyone’s preferences in mind when making decisions. Sometimes you have to disappoint people and that’s hard.

I always make sure I am available when my board members need me, so I have to be ‘on’ at all times. Planning my free time with family and friends and planning my workouts really helps to balance board life with my personal life, but I also have to say that I absolutely love putting my time and effort into Kraket so a busy week is no punishment. Doing this board year with amazing board members by my side makes it one of the most memorable years of my life and I would not trade it for anything. And that says a lot, since I love studying ;)

You can always hit me up for a cup of coffee if you want more information about the chairmanship.