‘Bos combines management experience in both the public and private sectors with a keen involvement with the social aspects in the areas in which Invest-NL will be involved,’ said a statement from the government news service.

Bos, who is currently CEO of the VUmc medical centre in Amsterdam, will start work at the bank on 29 October to help formulate policy. He will receive a gross annual salary of €202,000 plus €25,000 towards his pension and expenses.

Invest-NL was set up by the government in 2017 to move the government itself away from financing risk-bearing ventures, guarantees and financing public-private programmes. It will provide backing for start-ups, scale-ups, innovative projects and export. The bank has initial funding of €2.5bn and will be able to call on help from the private sector and EU funds.

Bos, 54, is a member of the Dutch Labour party (PvdA) and worked for Shell for 10 years in various positions. ‘The Dutch Left should not leave the business world to the Dutch Right,’ he later said in explanation.

In 1998 he was elected to parliament and served as finance minister from 2007 to 2010, the years of the banking crisis. Afterwards he took some time off to ‘help raise’ his young children working part-time at consultancy KPMG in the health care sector.

Bos joined VUmc as chairman in 2013 and was instrumental in its merger, completed on 7 June, with AMC joining the city’s two teaching hospitals as Amsterdam UMC.