Esseboom, Mark 1

The Hague, Director of Strategy and International Affairs, Directorate General for Telecom and Post, Ministry of Economic Affairs of The Netherlands

Mark Esseboom was born in Dordrecht, The Netherlands, on the 8th of March 1968. He is married and has got two children. After his studies of Macro-Economics at the Erasmus University of Rotterdam he joined the Foreign Financial Relations department of the Dutch Ministry of Finance. During the period 1991-1997 he held several positions within that directorate, mainly dealing with EU, IMF and OECD issues. From 1997 until the end of 1999, he was sent to the Permanent Representation of The Netherlands towards the EU in Brussels, where he was actively involved in the negotiations on the EU’s multiannual spending levels and the contributions of the Member States. After his return to The Hague he was appointed Head of the Project Division of the PPP (Public Private Partnerships) Knowledge Centre within the Ministry of Finance, dealing with the (new way of) financing major infrastructural projects in The Netherlands. Subsequently, he was appointed as Head of the EU Division of the same Ministry, being responsible for all financial and budgetary issues regarding the EU. October 2003, he moved to the Ministry of Economic Affairs where he held the temporary post of Deputy Director for European Affairs. As of the 1^st of June this year, he is Director for Strategy and International Affairs in the field of ICT/Telecom within the Ministry of Economic Affairs. In that capacity, he is, among other things, actively involved in the WSIS-process and plays an active role in the internal EU-coordination because of the Dutch EU-Presidency.