LinkedIn opens first office in mainland Europe, based in Amsterdam

Business social network LinkedIn has set up its first office in Continental Europe, and announced today that it will be led by Eugenie van Wiechen, who previously led eBay.nl / Marktplaats.nl in the Netherlands as Managing Director. The new offices were set up at the World Trade Center in Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport.

The move comes nearly two years after LinkedIn first established an office in London and appointed Kevin Eyres, previously MD of SideStep Europe and GM of AltaVista as European MD.

The company is doing well in Europe, although it has proved tough for them to convince members of established European players such as Xing (particularly in Germany) and Viadeo (particularly in France) to make the switch.

In her first blog post, van Wiechen tells about a conversation with LinkedIn VP of International Operations Arvind Rajan, who apparently told her that of the 55 million professionals that are now on LinkedIn, the member base in the Netherlands was one of the most active and highly engaged groups with the highest number of LinkedIn members per capita outside of the U.S. (more than 1 million).

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