Hermanus Philippus Johannes Bernardus Heinsbroek (born 12 January 1951) is a Dutch business

entrepreneur Entrepreneurship is the creation or extraction of economic value. With this definition, entrepreneurship is viewed as change, generally entailing risk beyond what is normally encountered in starting a business, which may include other values th ...

, media commentator, author and was Minister of

Economic Affairs An economy is an area of the production, distribution and trade, as well as consumption of goods and services. In general, it is defined as a social domain that emphasize the practices, discourses, and material expressions associated with th ...

in the

First Balkenende cabinet The first Balkenende cabinet was the executive branch of the Netherlands government from 22 July 2002 until 27 May 2003. The cabinet was formed by the Christian-democratic Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA), the nationalistic Pim Fortuyn List (L ...

. He also served as a member of the Member of the House of Representatives for the

Pim Fortuyn List The Pim Fortuyn List ( nl, Lijst Pim Fortuyn, LPF) was a political party in the Netherlands named after its eponymous founder Pim Fortuyn, a former university professor and political columnist. The party was considered populist, right-wing popu ...

party.

Personal life

Heinsbroek was born in

Schiedam Schiedam () is a city and municipality in the west of the Netherlands. It is located in the Rotterdam–The Hague metropolitan area, west of Rotterdam, east of Vlaardingen, and south of Delft. In the south the city is connected with the village ...

and grew up in

Rotterdam Rotterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Rotte'') is the second largest city and municipality in the Netherlands. It is in the province of South Holland, part of the North Sea mouth of the Rhine–Meuse–Scheldt delta, via the ''"N ...

. His father was the General Manager of the Blankenheim & Nolet gin distillery.Bio at ''Parlement & Politiek''
Heinsbroek studied business and civil law at the

Erasmus University Erasmus University Rotterdam (abbreviated as ''EUR'', nl, Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam ) is a public research university located in Rotterdam, Netherlands. The university is named after Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus, a 15th-century humanist ...

, graduating in 1975. He started out as a diplomat in the

Ministry of Foreign Affairs In many countries, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is the government department responsible for the state's diplomacy, bilateral, and multilateral relations affairs as well as for providing support for a country's citizens who are abroad. The entit ...

. After a brief time there, he left to work at CBS Records. In 1979 he was hired as Managing Director of Arcade Records Benelux. Through a management buy-out in 1984 he acquired the majority of the shares of the company. Over the years he built it into one of the largest independent players in the European music business, with affiliates in 11 countries plus the US, called The Arcade Entertainment Group. The company also owned Indisc, CNR Music, music retail chain The Music Store, Vanguard Classics, Arcade Music Publishing, Arcade Video, Radio 10 Gold, Concert Radio, Love Radio and music television station TMF. In 1995 Arcade was sold to Wegener N.V. He was also involved in founding the dating website ''ArcadeDating.'' Heinsbroek is known as a collector and connaisseur of Contemporary Art, in particular Chinese Art. He is a member of the supervisory board of Belinco N.V. Since 2006, he has co-presented the political debate show ''Recht door Zee'' on

Katholieke Radio Omroep KRO, or (Catholic Radio Broadcasting), was a Dutch public broadcasting organization founded on 23 April 1925. Broadly Catholic in its spiritual outlook, KRO broadcast the bulk of its television output on the NPO 1 channel. KRO was also responsi ...

and

KRO-NCRV KRO-NCRV is a Dutch public broadcasting company based in Hilversum established on January 1, 2014 from a merger of the broadcasters Catholic Radio Broadcasting (KRO) and the Dutch Christian Radio Association (NCRV), transmitting on NPO 1, NPO ...

. His first novel, a thriller entitled ''Risky Game,'' was published in 2015.

Political career

Heinsbroek became a member of the

(LPF) at the encouragement of Ferry Hoogendijk who was his neighbour at the time as the LPF was searching for candidates to stand in the upcoming 2002 election. He served in the first Balkenende cabinet as Minister of Economic Affairs, representing the LPF. His resignation, which came after continued public battle with fellow LPF member and Minister of Health, Welfare and Sport Eduard Bomhoff. Heinsbroek was one of the reasons for the collapse of the cabinet. Following the collapse, 2002, Heinsbroek founded his own party, the ''List of New Politics'' (LNP), initially with the intention of participating in the parliamentary elections on 22 January 2003. The LNP's program included important elements from the LPF's manifesto and contained former LPF MPs

Harry Wijnschenk Hartog Hank Richard (Harry) Wijnschenk (born 24 January 1964 in Amsterdam) is a former Dutch politician. From 2002 to 2003 he was an MP for the Pim Fortuyn List (LPF), and later for the Wijnschenk Group. He briefly served as leader of the LPF i ...

and Fred Schonewille. However, the idea was abandoned after Heinsbroek announced that he could not find enough suitable candidates to participate in the elections. Heinsbroek was briefly associated with the Democratic Political Turning Point (DPK) party in 2012 as an economic spokesman.'Groot economisch visionair' Heinsbroek, geen cijfers achter komma nodig
''

de Volkskrant ''de Volkskrant'' (; ''The People's Paper'') is a Dutch daily morning newspaper. Founded in 1919, it has a nationwide circulation of about 250,000. Formerly a leading centre-left Catholic broadsheet, ''de Volkskrant'' today is a medium-sized c ...

'', 15 augustus 2012

References

1951 births Living people Dutch businesspeople Ministers of Economic Affairs of the Netherlands Pim Fortuyn List politicians 21st-century Dutch politicians Dutch corporate directors Erasmus University Rotterdam alumni People from Schiedam {{Netherlands-politician-stub