Mrs. Carola Schouten - Mayor of the city of Rotterdam

Carola Schouten MSc is a Dutch politician and currently Mayor of the City of Rotterdam, where she has lived since 1995 .

Following her graduation in Business Administration from Erasmus University Rotterdam, Schouten worked as a policy officer at the Dutch Ministry of Social Affairs and Employment. In 2006, she became a policy officer for the Christian Union party in the House of Representatives. She was elected as a Member of Parliament in 2011, and in 2017 was appointed Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality in the Rutte III cabinet.

In the final cabinet of Mark Rutte, 2022-2024, Schouten was Minister for Poverty Policy, Participation and Pensions as well as continuing in her role as Deputy Prime Minister.

In October 2024, she became the first female mayor of the second-largest city in the Netherlands. In her maiden speech as Mayor of Rotterdam, Schouten focussed on the importance of the collective:  “Man's environment is his fellow man," quoting the famous Rotterdam poet and writer, Jules Deelder.  She appealed to her fellow Rotterdammers to work together to make their city “the most beautiful and enjoyable city we would wish for ourselves and for each other.”