Resignation Supervisory Board Chair: has every appearance of a conflict of interest been avoided?

The news that Tijo Collot d’Escury was stepping down from his position as Chair of the Supervisory Board of TU Delft with immediate effect came out of the blue on 28 February. It was not the criticism of the performance of his Board in the social safety dossier or the stopping of the recruitment of a new rector that made him decide that it was time for new blood. The reason given is different. Collot d’Escury wanted to avoid any ‘trace of a conflict of interest’.

There was much interest in the news, as reflected by the thousands of readers of Delta’s news item. Yet, there was still little clarity. What was so urgent that Collot d’Escury closed the door behind him with immediate effect? Why could he no longer combine his job at the Roland Berger consultancy firm with his Chairmanship while that had not been a problem at first?

Answers to questions

Delta asked Collot d’Escury these and other questions. He responded by saying that he would not answer the questions himself as he was no longer Chair of the Supervisory Board. He also did not want to go into questions about his company.

He directed Delta to TU Delft’s spokesperson. The spokesperson’s answers, the answers of Minister of Education Bruins and the Inspectorate of Education, and the Be proud of TU Delft interview with Collot d’Escury on TU Delft’s intranet give a clearer picture of the relationship between Roland Berger and TU Delft.

A combination of functions

Collot d’Escury took office as the Chair of the Supervisory Board in the summer of 2021. TU Delft was not new to him. He studied there and between 2008 and the time he took office as Chair he was a member of the Delft University Fund’s board, in part together with Rector Magnificus and Executive Board Chair Tim van der Hagen.

‘You can see that the norm is shifting’

Apart from that, Collot d’Escury is a co-founder and Managing Director of the Roland Berger consultancy firm, a company that a couple of years earlier was at the foundation of two large and current strategic developments at TU Delft, about which Delta has seen the documentation. One is the valorisation strategy, with the founding of the Innovation & Impact Centre as the most tangible outcome. The other is the ever closer collaboration with Erasmus MC and later Erasmus University, which ultimately led to plans for a TU Delft campus in Rotterdam. (Text box below: How the Rotterdam medical faculty nearly came to TU Delft.)

Both the advisory processes – the one about valorisation (Valorisation Voorbij, beyond valorisation) and the collaboration met Rotterdam (Convergence) – ran in 2018/2019. Collot d’Escury’s name is not mentioned in them. And he was not the Chair of the Supervisory Board at the time.

Collot d’Escury did serve as Supervisory Board chairman when the Campus Rotterdam programme organisation (which is making plans for a TU campus in that city) asked Roland Berger to issue an advice on the financing possibilities of that project, Delta discovered in November after a tip-off. When asked, he answered through the TU Delft spokesperson that this was not a problem as he was not involved himself.

But a potential new request on the same subject was the reason for Collot d’Escury to step down in February 2025. What had changed?

Partnerships under the magnifying glass

The zeitgeist has changed, he stated on the intranet. Partnerships with external partners would be more under a magnifying glass now than before. “You can see that the norm is shifting” Collot d’Escury said. “To avoid even the appearance of a conflict of interest, Roland Berger cannot work with TU Delft as long as I am on the Supervisory Board. This is also because Roland Berger works on strategic issues that can help determine the direction of the organisation. That is why the Supervisory Board and the Executive Board decided by mutual agreement at the beginning of this year that I would not serve a second term.”

How did this process work exactly? What magnifying glass was Collot d’Escury referring to? Could this be Delta’s questions in November about the Rotterdam Campus order? The TU Delft spokesperson answered that the latter was not the case.

According to the spokesperson, various departments within the university have made ‘new moral considerations’ at the end of 2024, a process that did not involve the Supervisory Board Chair or his company.

‘It is purely a question of transparency and integrity’

The direct trigger for this exercise were the strategic developments around Rotterdam Campus, and in particular the question of how the tender for the financial advice should be arranged. ‘Recently, more attention has been paid to moral considerations. Partly in relation to the ancillary activities of administrators and regulatory bodies. It is important and for the protection of everyone involved that this is looked at more critically and carefully.’

Was this the reason for his departure?

The interview on the intranet does not mention this internal deliberation. Was this the reason that Collot d’Escury left? Or did he independently come to the same conclusion that he could no longer combine his job at Roland Berger with being the Chair of the Supervisory Board? Nowhere does the connection become entirely clear. On the intranet he does say that ‘There was no pressure from the Ministry, the Executive Board or my Supervisory Board colleagues, quite the opposite. It is purely a question of transparency and integrity.’

And according to the TU Delft spokesperson, Collot d’Escury ‘himself decided at the end of last year not to accept a second term because there might be a chance that during this term TU Delft would want to work with Roland Berger on the Campus Rotterdam dossier, a dossier that would end up on the table of the Supervisory Board after the Executive Board’s decision-making process. ‘He would then no longer be able to be independent as Chair.’

What is different now compared to previous years?

But the Rotterdam Campus case had been on the table of the Supervisory Board earlier, hadn’t it? The spokesperson confirmed that this was indeed so, ‘but neither Roland Berger nor any Roland Berger products were involved nor were likely to be’.

The spokesperson referred to Article 5.2 of the Supervisory Board regulations. Before Collot d’Escury took office, this had been extended to:

‘A member of the Board does not take part in discussions or decision-making about a subject or transaction in which that member may have a personal interest or is in the interest of a person, company or institution with which the member is heavily involved.’ 

The ‘heavily involved’ was one of the additions in 2021 and now appears highly relevant. It indeed suggests, as the spokesperson said, that a problem would only arise if concrete Roland Berger products would be involved. So not if Rotterdam Campus in general were discussed.

Minister sees no problem

But in tendering, would Collot d’Escury’s in-depth knowledge of TU Delft’s operations not be advantageous for Roland Berger? And would this not disadvantage other, perhaps better or cheaper, parties?

‘All the parties that will submit tenders will be fairly evaluated through the relevant processes’

The TU Delft spokesperson said that this is not the case and Minister of Education Bruins agreed. The spokesperson wrote: ‘All the parties that will submit tenders will be fairly evaluated through the relevant processes by the Rotterdam Campus programme team and its partner the municipality of Rotterdam on their expertise and whether they meet the requirements for the task.’

Is a cooling off period needed?

In answer to Delta’s question whether a cooling off period is needed to prevent any appearance of a conflict of interest, the Minister answered that a decision on this rests with the Supervisory Board and not with him. He did however question the Supervisory Board who he said answered as follows.

‘We can only say that Mr Collot d’Escury strictly adhered to the provisions in the Supervisory Board’s regulations and the Good Governance Code. At Roland Berger there is an ‘ethical wall’ between Mr Collot d’Escury and the colleague and partner who may carry out assignments for TU Delft so as to guarantee integrity. In the past Mr Collot d’Escury was not involved in assignments and stated not to have any in the future.’

Collot d’Escury says something along similar lines in the intranet interview. He says that when he took office ‘It was agreed that I would not be involved in any projects, either as a member of the Supervisory Board or in my position as Managing Partner of Roland Berger’. The spokesperson said that this would also have been the case ‘in earlier awarding of contracts to Roland Berger on behalf of the Rotterdam Campus programme team’. 

‘At Roland Berger there is an ethical wall’

How strong and verifiable is the ‘ethical wall’ at Roland Berger? Collot d’Escury is the company’s Managing Director. Is he not the person with the final responsibility for everything? And how can TU Delft check that the above-mentioned wall remains intact now that Collot d’Escury has left the Supervisory Board? He himself said that ‘every partner is themself responsible for the quality of their tasks. The managing partner is responsible for the office.’ Running checks is easy, according to him. ‘The client (TU Delft) knows the team that will carry out the assignment and can thus check it.’

Who is that team and who is the partner in the Supervisory Board’s answer? Is it perhaps the partner that co-founded Roland Berger the Netherlands with Collot d’Escury? Who thought up the TU Delft valorisation strategy? Who left the Delft University Fund prematurely to avoid any sign of a conflict of interest?

But Collot d’Escury does not want to mention any names. ‘Given that the tender has not yet been assigned (so the scope and task are not yet known), this question cannot be answered.’

It thus remains hard to see the degree to which the stepping down of Collot d’Escury and his partner really is enough to avoid any sign of a conflict of interest.