City of Amsterdam - Mayor
http://www.amsterdam.nl

Netherlands (Amsterdam)

Job Cohen (Marius Job Cohen) was born on 18 October 1947 in the city of Haarlem. After completing high school in 1966 (Gymnasium A) he studied Public Law at Groningen University, graduating in 1971. He took his PhD at Leiden University in 1981 (Law in relation to university studies). From 1971 to 1981 he was on the academic staff of the Educational Research Bureau at Leiden University, becoming senior faculty member (1981), professor (1983) and rector magnificus at Maastricht University (1991). From 1993 to 1994 Cohen served as Deputy Minister of Education and Science (under confessional Prime Minister Ruud Lubbers), after which he returned to Maastricht University from 1995 to 1998, again as rector magnificus. Also in 1995 he was elected as a member of the Upper House of the Dutch parliament (Eerste Kamer van de Staten Generaal). After a brief interim directorship in 1998 of the VPRO broadcasting organisation (public sector), he resigned from the Upper House of Parliament and served from 1998 to 2001 as Deputy Minister of Justice under Labour Prime Minister Wim Kok, and introduced a new Dutch immigration law. Cohen resigned from the cabinet at the end of 2000 to become mayor of Amsterdam in 2001. Furthermore Job Cohen has been active as a member of the Educational Council, the Supervisory Board of the TNO (Dutch organisation for applied scientific research) and Felix Meritis (cultural foundation), and the boards of the VPRO public broadcasting organisation and the Jan van Eyck Academy (art school). Cohen was named one of Time Magazine’s ‘2005 European Heroes’, was chosen ‘best mayor of the Netherlands 2006’, ‘best mayor of the Netherlands in the last 25 years’ and has been nominated ‘best mayor of the world 2006’. Job Cohen held several positions in the PvdA (Dutch Labour Party), which he joined at the age of 20 in 1967. Cohen is married (1972) and has a son and a daughter.