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Victor van der Chijs joined OMA in 2005 as Managing Director / Partner. Next to the day-today responsibility for OMA’s operations, he is responsible for business development and expanding and diversifying OMA’s activities worldwide. Van der Chijs’ mission is to make OMA the most inventive creative company in the world.

 

OMA is a leading international partnership practicing architecture, urbanism, and cultural analysis. The office is led by seven partners and employs a staff of around 230 of more than 35 nationalities. To accommodate a range of projects worldwide, OMA maintains offices in Rotterdam, New York, Beijing, and Hong Kong.

 

Since 2005, OMA has tripled in size while maintaining strict creative standards. In 2007, Van der Chijs accepted the Jan Huygen van Linschoten Award, the business excellence award granted by of Dutch bank ABN AMRO, for OMA's successful entrance and maintenance in emerging markets such as China, and amongst others the United Arab Emirates.

Before joining OMA, Van der Chijs held various management positions at Schiphol Group - a leading international airport management company - in the Netherlands and the United States. Prior to joining Schiphol Group, he worked for financial institution ING for over 10 years, in the Netherlands and abroad.

 

Van der Chijs is a member of the Dutch Trade Board, and the Economic Development Board of Rotterdam. He is also member of the Board of Trustees of the Netherlands National Historical Museum, as well as a member of the Supervisory Board of Kennisland (Knowledgeland), an independent think tank that aims to strengthen the Dutch cultural, intellectual and economic spheres. Early 2011, Van der Chijs became member of the Supervisory Board of RET, the main public transport operator in the Rotterdam metropolitan area.

 

In March 2011 Van der Chijs was appointed by the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs, Agriculture and Innovation to head a 'top team' charged with exploring ways of stimulating innovation and entrepreneurship in the Netherlands. The team will focus on the creative industries, and consists of representatives from creative companies, research institutes and government. The key objective of the project, called To the Top – Towards a New Enterprise Policy, is to give entrepreneurs more scope for their activities and enable them to grow. The 'top team' will generate recommendations to help creative companies compete on the world market and benefit from growing world trade.

 

Van der Chijs holds a master degree in Law from the University of Amsterdam, and has followed extensive post-graduate education at the Amsterdam School of International Relations and at INSEAD, France.