Martinus Hendricus Petrus "Martijn" van Dam (born 1 February 1978) is a Dutch engineer and politician. A member of the Labour Party (PvdA), he served as State Secretary for

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 ...

from 3 November 2015 until 1 September 2017 in the

Second Rutte cabinet The second Rutte cabinet, also called the Rutte–Asscher cabinet, was the executive branch of the Government of the Netherlands from 5 November 2012 until 26 October 2017. The cabinet was formed by the conservative-liberal People's Party for ...

. He was a member of the

House of Representatives House of Representatives is the name of legislative bodies in many countries and sub-national entitles. In many countries, the House of Representatives is the lower house of a bicameral legislature, with the corresponding upper house often c ...

between 2003 and 2015. He previously served as

councillor A councillor is an elected representative for a local government council in some countries. Canada Due to the control that the provinces have over their municipal governments, terms that councillors serve vary from province to province. Unl ...

for the municipality of Eindhoven from April 1998 to January 2003. From the time he entered the States General on 30 January 2003 to 29 November 2006 he was the youngest member of the House.

Education

Van Dam was born in

Zoetermeer Zoetermeer () is a city in the Western Netherlands, in the province of South Holland. The municipality covers an area of of which is water. A small village until the late 1960s, it had 6,392 inhabitants in 1950. By 2013 this had grown to 123,328 ...

and grew up in Huissen. He moved to Eindhoven with his family in 1990, where he attended the Eindhoven University of Technology (studying

Technology Management Technology management is a set of management disciplines that allows organizations to manage their technological fundamentals to create customer advantage. Typical concepts used in technology management are: * Technology strategy (a logic or rol ...

). He was active in different student associations and also joined the Young Socialists (Jonge Socialisten) (becoming the president of the Eindhoven chapter).

Political involvement

Eindhoven City Council

In 1998 he ran for the Eindhoven City Council and became a councillor, later speaker for the Labour Party caucus in the city council and member of the national party committee of the Labour Party. After graduating from university he worked at

Philips Koninklijke Philips N.V. (), commonly shortened to Philips, is a Dutch multinational conglomerate corporation that was founded in Eindhoven in 1891. Since 1997, it has been mostly headquartered in Amsterdam, though the Benelux headquarters i ...

until 2003.

House of Representatives

In 2003 he was elected member of the House of Representatives, becoming the youngest member. He moved to

Utrecht Utrecht ( , , ) is the fourth-largest city and a municipality of the Netherlands, capital and most populous city of the province of Utrecht. It is located in the eastern corner of the Randstad conurbation, in the very centre of mainland Net ...

in 2005. In his first period in the House Labour Party caucus, Van Dam was spokesman for media, technology and innovation. He quickly established himself in 2003 by frequently asking questions about the Discharge Fraud in the IT sector, whereby probation period discharges were being abused as a

cost-cutting Cost reduction is the process used by companies to reduce their costs and increase their profits. Depending on a company’s services or products, the strategies can vary. Every decision in the product development process affects cost: design i ...

measure. Following the 2006 elections he became spokesman for foreign affairs, which made him the face of the Labour Party in the debate on the extension of the military mission in

Uruzgan Uruzgan ( Dari), also spelled as Urozgan or Oruzgan, is one of the thirty-four provinces of Afghanistan. Uruzgan is located in the center of the country. The population is 436,079, and the province is mostly a tribal society. Tarinkot serves as ...

. In March 2007 he joined the caucus leadership. Van Dam was elected Political Talent of the Year 2005 by the parliamentary press corps.

State Secretary for Economic Affairs

In November 2015 Van Dam became State Secretary for Economic Affairs, succeeding

Sharon Dijksma Sharon Alida Maria Dijksma (born 16 April 1971) is a Dutch politician serving as Mayor of Utrecht since 2020. A member of the Labour Party (PvdA), she previously was a State Secretary at the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science from 2007 ...

, who moved to the Ministry for Infrastructure and the Environment. He resigned on 1 September 2017.

References

*
Parlement.com biography
{{DEFAULTSORT:Dam, Martijn van 1978 births Living people Dutch agnostics Dutch engineers Eindhoven University of Technology alumni Labour Party (Netherlands) politicians Members of the House of Representatives (Netherlands) Municipal councillors of Eindhoven Politicians from Utrecht (city) People from Zoetermeer State Secretaries for Economic Affairs of the Netherlands 21st-century Dutch politicians