Edwin van Rest

Edwin is the CEO and co-founder of Studyportals. He is continuously looking to optimise our long-term world impact. Apart from his overall management tasks, he seeks strategic partnerships and focuses on further developing our products and services together with students and universities.

Edwin was educated in Industrial Engineering and Management Science where he specialised in knowledge-intensive processes and innovation management. He gained project management and analytic experience as a strategy consultant for a multitude of large corporations.

As part of his Master´s degree he spent one year at Osaka University in Japan and he worked in the IT services team for the Olympic Games both in Athens and Turin.

Edwin is a strong believer of international and intercultural experiences for the benefit of Personal and Professional development as well as society at large- through Studyportals he wants to stimulate and help others to broaden their horizon.

He is the chair of the Marketing & Recruitment Expert Community of the EAIE (European Association for International Education) and a frequent speaker at international Education conferences.

In September 2013 Edwin was honoured with the EAIE Rising Star Award for – despite his young career – making a notable contribution to international education.

Favourite Studyportals element/experience

Winning the New Venture competition for most promising, social start-up. New Venture is an initiative by McKinsey&Co and supported by the Dutch ministry of Economic affairs as well as many large multinational firms.

There were hundreds of inspiring start-ups competing in three rounds, the jury was tough, we knew we were doing well, but we never dared to hope for the first prize…

Apart from an unexpected cash contribution, this was great recognition for the whole team.

Key challenge

Edwin is fully determined to reach Studyportals’ ultimate ambition to make study-choice transparent globally. Keeping our razor-sharp focus on providing best information for students and best value-for-money for Universities; while having a lot of fun and making many new friends.

Favourite Listed Programme

The international Vintage Master: an Erasmus Mundus Master´s programme about vine growing, winemaking and oenology – taught in a combination of Spain, Italy, Hungary, Portugal and, of course, France.