Ajax Cape Town

Cape Town hosts Ajax Amsterdam Directors

Ajax Cape Town hosted two Directors of Ajax Amsterdam earlier this week. Henri Van der Aat and Rik van den Boog arrived in Cape Town for a meeting of the board at Ajax Cape Town.

Henri Van der Aat serves as Chief Commercial Officer of AFC Ajax Amsterdam since January 2009 and before that he served as the Acting Chief Executive Officer of Ajax Amsterdam.

Mr Van Der Aat was the CEO of Rabobank Wielerploeg and he also served on the board of the sport marketing agency Trefpunt Sports & Leisure Marketing before he took up the post at Ajax Amsterdam.

An avid sailor Henri coached the national Dutch sailing team. However football is never far from his heart and his responsibilities within Ajax Amsterdam include sponsorship, marketing and sales, merchandising, media as well as the commercial development of the club.

The second half of the Ajax Amsterdam representation was Mr Rik van den Boog. Rik is the Director-General of Ajax Amsterdam since 2008.

A product of the Ajax Amsterdam Youth Academy his football career was cut short by an injury while he was playing for the Ajax second team.

He graduated with a degree in mathematics before he started to work for Xerox. His Career has seen him for many of the world’s major brands like Libertel and Vodafone.

Their visit to Cape town is in line with the annual board meeting of Ajax Cape Town of which Ajax Amsterdam is a shareholder.

Although the meeting took up most of the day, the pair had time to meet and greet the staff of Ajax Cape town and when they inspected the newly laid artificial pitch at Ikamva, the Directors of Amsterdam and Cape Town kicked off their formal shoes and held an impromptu football game of three vs two (Cape Town vs Amsterdam).

Mr Van der Aat and van den Boog, basked in the summer sunshine and hospitality of Cape Town before they departed for the freezing winter of Europe.