Ruud Hendriks

About Ruud Hendriks

After studying journalism Ruud Hendriks (1959) started his career as a DJ on board legendary pirate station Radio Caroline. At the age of 20 he got his first opportunity as a TV-reporter and anchorman with public broadcaster Veronica. During a 9-year period Ruud anchored many Dutch TV programs mainly on news, current-affairs and sports. Amongst others he hosted the 1988 Olympic Games for “Studio Sport” and several telethon’s for “Greenpeace”.

Over the years he became head of news and current affairs for Veronica. He initiated the first non-stop Newsradio format in the Netherlands and several innovative TV formats.

But the limits of public broadcasting in the Netherlands frustrated him so in the late eighties Ruud became a co-founder of Sky Radio and Radio 10. These radio stations used European legislation to beam into Dutch cable head ends from beyond the Dutch borders.

In 1989 he wrote the business plans for RTL4 and RTL5 and became their first program director. He then became the station’s C.O.O. Under his tenure RTL became the market leading TV broadcaster in the Netherlands.

In 1992, living in London, Ruud became President of NBC Europe and transformed Superchannel into NBC Superchannel and finally into CNBC Europe.

Social circumstances forced him back to the Netherlands where he joined entrepreneurs Joop van den Ende and John de Mol as an executive member of TV-production company Endemol Entertainment. When Ruud joined in 1994 the company operated in 3 countries, when he left in 2001 Endemol had subsidiaries in 21 countries. Market value grew from 135 million Euros’ to 5.3 Billion.

During his stint at Endemol he was responsible for all its online activities, international expansion and distribution. Amongst others he developed the online business model for “Big Brother” making Endemol the most profitable online company of the Netherlands in the late nineties. With SBS he negociated a joint venture for it’s webactivities “SBSnet”, the first of it’s kind between a broadcaster and a production company.

He played a key role in Endemol’s I.P.O, the start of failed sports channel Sport 7, and the 2000 take over of the company by Telefonica from Spain.

When Ruud noticed that despite it’s online success Endemol’s other boardmembers refused to further invest in it’s webactivities he decided to leave.

After his departure from Endemol Ruud accepted several supervisory board positions. From 2002 until 2004 he was (chairman) of United Broadcast Facilities, during 2004 and 2005 chairman of Radio 538. Until December 2009 he was Chairman of “Het Nieuwe Parool” which owns one third of leading Amsterdam newspaper “Het Parool”

In August 2010 Ruud Hendriks sold his shares in Lux Media which owned “Het Gesprek” a national TV station for an affluent audience. Lux Media also owns NRC Media which publishes two national newspapers NRC Handelsblad en NRC Next.

Ruud is a co-founder of Startupbootcamp Amsterdam and Startupbootcamp International which in 5 European cities accelerates other startups with the help of renowned mentors. He’s also a supervisory board member at Eyeworks TV, Dutch bank Theodoor Gilissen and a member of the advisory board of BSUR (ad agency), MAS Services, AIMgen (neuromarketing) Dittit.com, Toogethr (crowdriding) and Mobitto (mobile sales).

Ruud is a regular speaker about innovation and media at seminars and hosts of two weekly current-affairs programs at BNR Newsradio.

He’s married with Annemieke van der Mast and lives in Amsterdam.