
Head of R&D for Traffic, Surveillance and Monitoring at Barco
Brussels Area, Belgium

Head of R&D for Traffic, Surveillance and Monitoring at Barco
Brussels Area, Belgium
R&D Management
Business Unit Management
Interim Management
Change leadership
Entrepreneurship
Customer and Solution Mindset
Strategic reorientation
Innovation
Operational Excellence (mainly in ICT and SW development)
Change management
Project and program management
(Public Company; BAR; Electrical/Electronic Manufacturing industry)
May 2009 — Present (11 months)
Responsibility was extended to also include the display walls. Result is that the scope now contains all elements that are needed to be able to deliver full solutions to our market segments. Focus has shifted from pure visualization to full decision support. The R&D team now consists of more than 200 people distributed over Belgium (Kortrijk), Germany (Karlsruhe and Bremen), India (Noida) and the US (Duluth).
(Privately Held; 1-10 employees; Information Technology and Services industry)
November 2006 — Present (3 years 5 months)
Innoprove bvba is my own company. We provide management consulting services, both in fixed price and on a time and expense basis. Focus is on professionalizing software development teams, business process consulting, requirements engineering and innovation. The company name is an acronym of improve and innovation, which reflects our mission statement: we help you improve your business through innovation. This ambition is not restricted to small incremental improvements, but is also aimed at breakthrough innovations. Our primary focus is not product innovation, but process and business model innovation. If you would like to know more, do not hesitate to contact me to see how we could help each other.
(Public Company; BAR; Electrical/Electronic Manufacturing industry)
February 2009 — April 2009 (3 months)
With a team of more than 100 high level engineers, distributed over Belgium, Germany, the US and India, we develop the current and next generation of controllers to support workflows through networked visualization in applications such as broadcast, telecom, utilities, proces control, traffic, surveillance and defense.
(Non-Profit; Information Technology and Services industry)
April 2008 — January 2009 (10 months)
This non-profit organization had ended up in a very bad shape after the creation of a spin-off, in which many managers and key personnel had left. My role was to define a new strategy for the organization, and to get it back on track after an 18 month virtual standstill. Together with the team, we developed a new strategy in which many of the old activities were stopped, and some new focus areas were defined to significantly increase the added value of the organization for its intended market. The key assets and resources of i-City with the newly defined focus and approach have been integrated into IBBT, which gives it a larger support base and also improves the use of synergy effects with complementary research groups within IBBT.
(Privately Held; 11-50 employees; Industrial Automation industry)
December 2006 — March 2008 (1 year 4 months)
After 10 years at Siemens, I decided to move to a promising startup company with ambitious growth targets called Synthetis. It is active in the world of industrial automation and focuses mainly on production facilities in the food and beverage industry. It can count on a number of very competent and experienced IT/manufacturing consultants in its mids, as well as a number of very innovative and strong products in MES, all self developed. My role at Synthetis is that of COO (Chief Operations Officer). I lead the R&D team and the team of consultants, I have the responsibility for the project and maintenance business, and I am responsible for business development with existing customers. An important challenge is to streamline the company to help support its strong growth phase.
(Public Company; 201-500 employees; Information Technology and Services industry)
September 2006 — December 2006 (4 months)
Responsible for the project business of SBS in BeLux. This comprises software development, software and system integration, ERP, BI, DWH, Document mgt and BPC projects. Main activity domains are public sector, including EU, and manufacturing. My team consists of about 130 people.
(Public Company; 201-500 employees; Information Technology and Services industry)
June 2005 — September 2006 (1 year 4 months)
P&L responsibility over a business unit with a 15'0€ turnover. Main responsibility is to be a pro-active interface between sales and delivery. Scope of the practice is application integration, software architecture, software development and security consulting. Customers are mainly government institutions in Flanders and Belgium, European DG's, NATO and manufacturing companies.
(Public Company; 11-50 employees; Information Technology and Services industry)
June 2000 — May 2005 (5 years )
Head of an R&D department of about 50 people.The main focus was software architecture and development work for Siemens headquarters in Munich, Germany. Our specialty was in embedded and open system enterprise communications systems, including PBX's, VoIP gateways and Unified Messaging systems. The first years, my main role was to lead the department. I participated in the monthly management meetings in headquarters, and was part of the R&D board in Belgium.
After a strategic decision by HQ to relocate our R&D activities from Belgium to Greece, my role changed to restructuring and redirecting the local team from a subcontractor in Ghent to a business oriented system integrator in Huizingen. In that role, I created the business plan for the transformation, deployed it, participated in the negotiations with union representatives and lead the change management process. After this very challenging and enriching experience, I moved on to more business oriented positions.
(Public Company; 5001-10,000 employees; Information Technology and Services industry)
June 1996 — May 2000 (4 years )
Combined the roles of department head of a group of about 10 software engineers with that of project manager for software development projects and that of software architect.
As a software architect, co-developed the concepts and architecture for the IP cards in the Siemens HiPath enterprise communication products, with functionalities such as ethernet connection, IP router/firewall, VPN server, VoIP gateway, and VCAPI server (virtual ISDN card for IP connected PC's).
As a project manager, lead several international software development projects with a typical size of between 3 mio and 5 mio over a 12 month period.
Masters , Entrepreneurship Development Program (EDP) , 2008 — 2008
Master of Innovation and Entrepreneurship 2005 — 2006
MID , 2002 — 2003
Summa Cum Laude , PhD in Applied Sciences , 1992 — 1996
Summa Cum Laude , M. Sc. Electrical Engineering , 1987 — 1992