Career
Educated as a Chartered Accountant Van Benthem worked for the Tax and Customs Administration, at the Ministry of Finance as well as the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and at the Queen" General’ s Office. From 1994 to 2005 he was a councillor of Zeist, which is a municipality of the province of Utrecht. On September 1, 2005 he became mayor of Eemnes, which also is a municipality of the province of Utrecht.
Being homosexual he was treasurer of LGBT organization COC Nederland from 2001 to 2004.
