Kees Koolen (born 19 August 1965 in

Bergeijk Bergeijk () is a municipality and town in the southern Netherlands, in the province of North Brabant. It consists of an area of and had a population of in . It is one of 21 municipalities, including Eindhoven, that make up the Eindhoven Region Co ...

North Brabant North Brabant ( nl, Noord-Brabant ; Brabantian: ; ), also unofficially called Brabant, is a province in the south of the Netherlands. It borders the provinces of South Holland and Gelderland to the north, Limburg to the east, Zeeland to the we ...

) is a Dutch

rally raid Rally raid, also known as cross-country rallying, is a form of long distance off-road racing that takes place over several days. The length of the event can be as short as 2–3 days for a cross-country baja to as long as 15 days with marathon ra ...

racer and businessman. Koolen participated in various rally raid competitions in a variety of vehicles. Koolen also was the CEO of

Booking.com Booking.com, headquartered in Amsterdam, is one of the largest online travel agencies. It is a subsidiary of Booking Holdings. History In 1996, Geert-Jan Bruinsma, a student at Universiteit Twente, founded Bookings.nl. In 2000, Booking.com w ...

. Currently he is the Chairman/CEO of Koolen Industries: a Dutch clean energy conglomerate.

Business career

Koolen studied technical business administration at the

Twente University The University of Twente (Dutch: ''Universiteit Twente''; , abbr. ) is a public technical university located in Enschede, Netherlands. The university has been placed in the top 170 universities in the world by multiple central ranking tables. ...

. Despite not graduating the university, started his own business as an advisor to different companies. During this time Koolen was an

angel investor An angel investor (also known as a business angel, informal investor, angel funder, private investor, or seed investor) is an individual who provides capital for a business or businesses start-up, usually in exchange for convertible debt or owners ...

to different internet startups. Koolen was one of the founders of

, a price comparison website for hotels. He sold the company in 2005 to

Booking Holdings Booking Holdings Inc. is an American travel technology company incorporated under Delaware General Corporation Law and based in Norwalk, Connecticut, that owns and operates several travel fare aggregators and travel fare metasearch engines inc ...

for 110 million

Euros The euro (symbol: €; code: EUR) is the official currency of 19 out of the member states of the European Union (EU). This group of states is known as the eurozone or, officially, the euro area, and includes about 340 million citizens . T ...

. Koolen remained Booking.com's CEO until 2011. In 2013 his wealth was estimated at 115 million euro, making him 232nd wealthiest person in the Netherlands. When

Uber Uber Technologies, Inc. (Uber), based in San Francisco, provides mobility as a service, ride-hailing (allowing users to book a car and driver to transport them in a way similar to a taxi), food delivery (Uber Eats and Postmates), package ...

placed its headquarters in

Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the Capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population ...

, Koolen was named by

Travis Kalanick Travis Cordell Kalanick (; born August 6, 1976) is an American businessman best known as the co-founder and former chief executive officer (CEO) of Uber. Previously he worked for Scour, a peer-to-peer file sharing application company, and was th ...

COO COO or coo may refer to: Business * Certificate of origin, used in international trade * Chief operating officer or chief operations officer, high-ranking corporate official * Concept of operations, used in Systems Engineering Management Process ...

. Simultaneously, Koolen founded Agri Brasil, a conglomerate of large dairy farms. In 2019 Koolen was profiled as a 'day dreamer.' by PVV States member Erik Veltmeijer in newspaper Dagblad De Gelderlander. Veltmeijer speaks of 'a complete failure' and qualifies director Kees Koolen of Lithium Werks en passant as a day dreamer.

Rally raid

Koolen competed in his first

Dakar Rally The Dakar Rally (or simply "The Dakar"; formerly known as the "Paris–Dakar Rally") is an annual rally raid organised by the Amaury Sport Organisation. Most events since the inception in 1978 were staged from Paris, France, to Dakar, Senegal, ...

at the

2009 Dakar Rally The 2009 Dakar Rally was the 31st running of the Dakar Rally. In addition to motorcycle, automobile, and truck categories, a separate quad (all-terrain vehicle) class was added for the first time. The race began on 3 January 2009, and took place a ...

. Racing a

Honda CRF series The Honda CRF series is a line of four-stroke motocross, trail, and dual sport motorcycles manufactured and marketed by Honda. The CRF line was launched in 2000 as a successor to the Honda CR series. The full sized motocross bikes are equipped w ...

CRF450 he finished 69th in the motorbike classification. For the

2010 Dakar Rally The 2010 Dakar Rally was the 32nd running of the event. It was held in South America for the second successive time, and ran from 1 to 16 January. The Amaury Sport Organisation and the governments of Argentina and Chile agreed to a return to South ...

, Koolen and his team raced a McRae Enduro buggy. Koolen had a troubled third stage. He passed all check points but stranded on his way to the bivak and had to retire. For the

2011 Dakar Rally The 2011 Dakar Rally was the 33rd running of the event. It was held in Argentina and Chile for the third successive time, and ran from 1 to 16 January. The Amaury Sport Organisation and the governments of Argentina and Chile agreed to a return to ...

Koolen developed his own buggy to compete, the GoKoBra. The team entered two GoKoBra's, one for Koolen and one for teammate

Jurgen van den Goorbergh Jurgen van den Goorbergh (born 29 December 1969) is a Dutch former professional motorcycle road racer also known as ''The Flying Dutchman''. His son, Zonta van den Goorbergh, is also a motorcycle racer and currently competes in Moto2. Career ...

. Koolen was disqualified after the sixth stage. Koolen finished the sixth stage outside the time limit but was given dispensation by the organisation. The organisation later the decided to disqualify Koolen because he missed the first check point. The team finished the

2012 Dakar Rally The 2012 Dakar Rally was the 34th running of the event. It was held in South America for the fourth successive time. Summary By 17 March 2011, Argentine president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner announced that the start would be in Mar del Plata, ...

in 59th place. Koolen entered his first Dakar Rally with a quad at the

2013 Dakar Rally The 2013 Dakar Rally was the 35th running of the event and the fifth successive year that the event was held in South America. The event started in Lima, Peru on 5 January and finished in Santiago, Chile on 19 January after fourteen stages of com ...

. He again finished the Dakar Rally, in 17th place. In 2014 Koolen became the first participant to finish the Dakar Rally in all four classes. In 2014 Koolen joined Van den Goorbergh and Gijs van Uden in a

Ginaf GINAF (legally GINAF Trucks Nederland BV) is a Dutch truck manufacturer which produces trucks mainly for heavy duty off-road transport, construction and agricultural work. About 250 trucks are made each year in the company's factory in Veenendaa ...

truck entered by Maxxis Dakar Team Powered by Super B. The team finished in 37th place. For 2015, Koolen developed his own quad off-road racer. During the Dakar Rally Koolen was arrested by Chilean authorities. During the fifth stage Koolen deviated from the determined route and drove through a protected area. Koolen was released after questioning. Koolen was not the only participant racing through a protected area in the

Atacama Desert The Atacama Desert ( es, Desierto de Atacama) is a desert plateau in South America covering a 1,600 km (990 mi) strip of land on the Pacific coast, west of the Andes Mountains. The Atacama Desert is the driest nonpolar desert in the ...

, Matteo Cassucio was also arrested. The following stage Koolen retired from the rally. For 2016 Koolen returned in his Honda quad with top ten stage results. He did not finish the Dakar Rally after stage nine. After his retirement an incident with a helicopter caused his quad (without rider) to drop fifty meters to the ground. In 2017 Koolen and his team developed the Barren Racing quad racer. With his self developed quad he scored his first stage win. He won the 219 km stage between

Tupiza Tupiza is a city in Potosí Department, Bolivia. It is located at an elevation of about 2850 m. The population is 25,709 (2012 estimate). Tupiza and its environs are characterized by dramatic red escarpments which jut ruggedly skyward from the coa ...

and

Oruro Oruro (Hispanicized spelling) or Uru Uru is a city in Bolivia with a population of 264,683 (2012 calculation), about halfway between La Paz and Sucre in the Altiplano, approximately above sea level. It is Bolivia's fifth-largest city by pop ...

. The stage was shortened because of bad weather. Koolen finished the Dakar Rally in seventeenth place in class.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Koolen, Kees 1965 births Living people Dakar Rally drivers Dutch rally drivers People from Bergeijk Sportspeople from North Brabant Booking Holdings Dutch businesspeople Dutch corporate directors