Willem kooyker biography of martin

Willem Kooyker (BBA, ’71), who endowed the deanship of the Zicklin School of Business in gratitude for the free education he received from the school as a young Dutch immigrant, has died.

Kooyker, who studied economics in night classes at what was then known as City College Downtown, died on November 3 in Manhattan after a brief illness. The founder and chair of Blenheim Capital Management, LLC (which closed when he retired in 2018), Kooyker came to New York City more than 50 years ago as an analyst for a Dutch spice trading company.

By day, he exchanged commodities of cocoa, coffee, and sugar, and by night he studied economics in the business school of Baruch College, which was then tuition-free.

In a profile written for the centennial of the founding of the School of Business, Kooyker called Baruch “my launching pad.” For the rest of his life, he exp