Canada-Alberta International Conference on Competing for Skills

Keynote Speaker and Special Guests

Keynote Speaker

  • Mr. Jack Dusseldorp
    President of WorldSkills International
    Mr. Tjerk (Jack) Dusseldorp holds degrees in Law and Social Science. He is the Chair of the Dusseldorp Skills Forum and past Chairman of the WorldSkills Australia Foundation.  Mr. Dusseldorp has served on the Boards of the New South Wales Technical and Further Education Commission and the Australian Student Traineeship Foundation.  He was the first Executive Director of the Evatt Foundation and headed up the Office of Youth Affairs within the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet in the second Hawke Government.

    Mr. Dusseldorp has served as Australia's Official Delegate to WorldSkills International since 1981 when Australia became a Member.  He was also the Executive Director of the WorldSkills Australia Foundation which hosted the international WorldSkills Competition in Sydney in February 1988.

    In 1995, Mr. Dusseldorp was elected to the Board of WorldSkills International as Vice President of Special Affairs. He chaired the Member Taskforce that developed the first WorldSkills Strategic Plan which was adopted by the General Assembly in Montreal, Canada in November 1999.  Shortly thereafter, Mr. Dusseldorp was elected President.  He was subsequently re-elected for second and third terms as President in St Gallen in 2003 and in Shizuoka, Japan in November 2007.

    Mr. Dusseldorp was awarded a Doctor of Social Science for outstanding leadership in developing models of program delivery, supporting research and public debate on access by young people to learning and work.

Special Guests

  • Mr. Aart de Geus
    Mr. de GeusDeputy Secretary-General of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)
    As Deputy Secretary-General, Mr. Aart de Geus is in charge of the Political Economy of Reform, and preparations for the Ministerial Council Meeting and the Executive Committee in Special Session.

    Mr. de Geus, a Dutch national, was Minister of Social Affairs and Employment in the Netherlands from 2002 until 22 February this year. As Minister, Mr. de Geus introduced major reforms in the Dutch social security system, notably by turning it into an activating system where citizens, employers and local authorities take their own responsibilities. During the four years of his tenure, he concluded major national agreements with social partners on wages, reforms of social security and tax-facilities for early retirement. He chaired the OECD Social Policy Ministerial Meeting in 2005 and has served in various functions at local, national and international level.

    From 1998 until 2002, Mr. de Geus was a partner in an Amsterdam-based company for strategy and management, where he worked in the fields of health care, pensions and human resource development.

    Mr. de Geus served as vice-chairman of the executive board of the National Federation of Christian Trade Unions from 1993 to 1998, where he focused on social security, health care, pensions, labour market policy, income policy and education. He had been member of the Trade Union’s executive board since 1988. Prior to that, Mr. de Geus worked as a lawyer in the industry sector of the Christian Trade Union.

    Mr. de Geus has a law degree from the Erasmus University in Rotterdam and post-graduate studies in labour law from Nijmegen University. M. de Geus is married and has three children.

    Mr. de Geus took up his functions on 5 March 2007

  • Ms. Kathrin Hoeckel
    Directorate for Education, OECD
    Ms. Kathrin Hoeckel is a policy analyst in the OECD’s Directorate for Education where she is working on 'Learning for Jobs' - the OECD programme of work on vocational education and training. She is responsible for country reviews of vocational education and training in Australia, Austria, Germany, Switzerland and the UK (England and Wales) and for analytical work on costs and benefits in VET. Prior to this activity, she worked on the issue of school leadership and took part in a thematic review on adult learning at the OECD.

    Before joining the OECD, she worked in the field of education and development cooperation, inspecting and evaluating development projects of local NGOs in Morocco (including on special education and vocational education and training) and carried out research on post-war reconstruction and state-building in Lebanon for the LSE’s Crisis State Research Centre.

    Kathrin holds a M.Sc. in history and political science from Munich University (Germany) and a Master’s degree in public administration from the London School of Economics and Political Science.

    Kathrin is of German nationality.