Jenny Thunnissen

After a brilliant 25-year career at the Tax and Customs Administration, Jenny Thunnissen became its first woman director general. She held this position – the highest in the service – from 2000 to 2008. Civil servants appreciated her in-depth knowledge, genuine interest and ability to analyse and provide strategic guidance. In 2002, she was voted government manager of the year, but this was followed by problematic years involving the automation of the service and the introduction of allowances. Thunnissen warned that the Tax Administration should not be made responsible for allowances. She realised that the systems were not designed for the task and that allowances did not belong with the service, whose task until then had only been to collect taxes. However, she still had to implement this political decision. It would lead to tragedy: the consequences are now well known. 

Jenny Thunnissen studied civil law and joined the Tax Administration immediately after graduation. Her talent was recognised and she was offered a managerial position. But at that time, she had a very young child and she was therefore working half-days: childcare was neither widespread nor widely accepted in the 1970s. Parental leave for fathers did not exist and in all walks of life, childcare fell mainly on mothers. 

Thunnissen had also turned down a second job offer after the birth of her second child. A third child followed later. Once all three of her children started school, she began working full time again and expressed a desire to work her way up the ladder. She was wise to do so because her manager had actually thought she did not really want to, after her initial refusals.

In 2000, after ten years of running various departments at the Tax Administration, she was appointed director general (DG). She performed so well that two years later she was voted government manager of the year. Meanwhile, there were major problems with automation. A new system was being implemented, while the service also had to start paying healthcare and rent allowances. In 2004, the childcare benefit would be added. Nobody at the Tax and Customs Administration thought this was a good idea and Thunnissen warned the senior management of the Ministry of Finance that the plans involved were asking too much at the same time and that implementation would get hopelessly bogged down. 

When things did go completely wrong, Thunnissen was responsible as the most senior official. She was pressured into taking on a role at the Human Environment and Transport Inspectorate. Of course, her departure did not put an end to the problems at the Tax Administration…