Flexmanager - Director

Director

Work Experience

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE

06/2003 – 12/2003 Kaim Associates, Inc (USA) : Interim Managing Director, Kaim Associates Europe

• Special assignment till the end of 2003 to represent Kaim Associates Inc and be actively involved in all matters related to its expansion plans for Europe.
• Strategic consulting to executive board on future structure for establishing full European organization for 2004 onwards.
• Analyse market opportunities for the customized database services (eg corporate knowledge management) Kaim Associates is providing to the pharmaceutical and Biotech companies
• Define new product requirements in line with European market trends
• Support and guide Product Management initiatives in US HQ
• Establish contacts with major industry analysts like Gartner, Forrester Group, IDC, Butler etc
• Advice senior management on international business development opportunities
• Assess partnership with leading key industry influencers and other major contributors in healthcare and Life Sciences
• Be present in the field to assure stability with existing customer base
• Focus on generating revenue with new customers
• Overall Responsible for European hiring program for key functions.

2001 until 06/2003 Language and Computing NV (L&C), Belgium : VP Sales & Marketing worldwide

• L&C is the worldwide leading NLP vendor focussed on Healthcare and Life Sciences markets, recognized by Gartner group as a very promising technology company to build revolutionary business intelligence and data/text mining solutions.
• Led initial business development launch for this start-up technology company and key contributor to the negotiation and signature of first revenue generating contracts like Merck, UCB, WebMD, Eclipsys,…
• Provided strategic directions in defining automated data mining mechanism, Knowledge Management solutions ,Terminology Management systems, information extraction of primary clinical data to build clinical warehouses to improve decision support, …
• Member of the Management Committee, reporting directly to the CEO and the Board of Directors.
• responsible for developing Sales & Marketing business plan from scratch for Healthcare IT, Life Sciences and Generic market segments.
• full p&l responsibility for sales and marketing budget worldwide
• Opened North-American office in Philadelphia in 2002
• Developed recruitment program to hire new senior sales and support team for US and Europe
• Established key account relationships with senior level executives to ensure solution awareness and its value proposition.
• Established close relationships with key vendors (eg WebMD, Siemens SMS, Eclipsys, IBM Life Sciences) and industry influencers (eg Gartner Group).
• Actively participated in the preparation of the new corporate business plan for the next VC round and intimately involved in all phases of fund raising activity.

1997 until 2000 BULL BENELUX
Senior Interim Sales Manager for CSI (Consulting and System Integration) : 1999 – 2000

• French successful system integrator in Government and Finance.
• Management and coaching of Benelux CSI sales team
• Development of sales and marketing business development plan
• Responsible for major contracts in Public sector / Government
• Launch lead generation activities to generate new business
• Order intake 2000 : $27 million
• Personally initiated, negotiated and closed major European fingerprint identification contract valued over $10 million with European Commission including unique partnership with US based subcontractor Cogent (CA).
• Target achievement : 109%

Senior Interim Sales Manager for BULL21 division : 1997 - 1998

• BULL21 being a new services division, needed strong senior sales management to build a new sales team and achieve rapid and substantial sales success.
• Development and execution of marketing and PR-events to create awareness in the market of the new services offering
• Key contributor to the business development resulting in Order intake 1997 from ground zero to $ 3 million, and further expanding in 1998 to $8 million
• Development and implementation of Solution Selling methodology in Sales Tracking Tool
• Implementation of new assessment software to accelerate recruitment cycle to hire new experts

1996 SAS Institute Europe (Heidelberg, Germany) : Interim European Business Development Manager Public Sector

• Develop Business Intelligence Projects within the European Institutions
• Based in Brussels with EC project team (10 direct reports), direct reporting line to the European Sales Director in Heidelberg
• Introduced new SAS product offering into the EC network
• 1996 new business development : $1,5 million with p&l responsibility

1994 – 1995 Lotus Development / IBM
Function : Sales Manager Benelux

• US based software company of office tools and groupware solutions, acquired by IBM in 1995.
• responsible for managing and retaining all large accounts, direct reporting line to Benelux General Manager
• Assisting and coaching the corporate account team (5 direct reports), organising forecast meetings, development of sales tracking tools.
• Organising PR-events in Cambridge (Boston, US) for large European accounts.
• Initiated, directed and conducted new Lotus Consultancy Services in Benelux resulting in over $1 million in new business.
• Participated in corporate strategic issues.
• Achievements :
1994 : 126% of $2.5 million target
1995 : 120% of $3 million target

1989 – 1993 ICL / Fujitsu
Function : Senior Account Manager

• European hardware provider of High End retail solutions acquired by Fujitsu.
• Developed European Retail market with a major focus on the large accounts.
• Intimately involved in the acquisition of Datachecker at Benelux level.
• Initiated and closed a major deal with largest Belgian retailer for $3 million.
• Achievements :
1990 : 120%
1991 : 95%
1992 : 110%

1986 – 1988 SG2 Benelux
Function : Account Manager

• French software and services provider specialised in Finance and Government
• responsible for starting up a new business unit in the Benelux financial market
• major achievement : initiated and closed exceptional deal from ground zero to $2.5 million with the Belgian largest bank (largest contract for the whole SG2 group)
• Developed Recruitment support program for hiring technical engineers

1985 AMC, Santa Clara – California
Function : support engineer young graduate programme

Education

1974 – 1980 : Xaverius college, Borgerhout : science department

1980 – 1985 : KIHA (University): Honours degree in engineering, specialisation in computer science

1992 – 1993 : IPO, Antwerp (evening University) : Honours degree in Financial and Economic Management

1996 – 1997 : EHSAL, Antwerp (evening University) : Export Management

Skills

OBJECTIVE

Senior level professional wants to work for an innovative company, which recognizes and rewards outstanding achievements and provides future growth opportunities.

CAREER SUMMARY

A dynamic, entrepreneurial professional with nearly 20 years of combined sales and marketing management, solid international business development (US and Europe) and information technologies know-how. Leader with extensive experience in strategic and operational development, complex enterprise sales competences in various industries like IT, Life Sciences, Healthcare, Government,...

QUALIFICATIONS AND ACCOMPLISHMENTS

• Nearly 20 years of successful consultative international management and representations in USA and Europe
• Thorough knowledge of various business domains
• Start-up experience in personal and venture capital funded initiatives as well as with large corporation.
• Solid HR experience in hiring, motivating and training staff
• Ground-zero customer relationship development with long-term retention
• Established extensive experience in global offerings including services.
• Pioneered sales (direct and channel sales) and marketing strategy of state-of-the-art concept solutions
• Strong communication skills and display good leadership qualities with a dedicated focus on “getting things done” (bottom line oriented).
• Speaker at several international trade shows and conferences like Himss, Harrogate, PCSE, DIA, vendor sales meetings, …
• Fluently in various European languages.
• Able to cope quickly with behavioural and technical requirements of new environments
• bvba: founded own management company in 1994 to operate as an independent contractor for various assignments (interim).

Languages

Dutch : mother tongued
French : perfect (speaking, reading, writing, negotiating)
English : perfect (speaking, reading, writing, negotiating)
German : basic

Other

ADDITIONAL TRAINING

Expert in the following sales methodologies :

* Solution Selling
* Target Account Selling

Assisted various trainings in :

* Sales Management
* Marketing Management
* Strategic thinking
* Executive Behaviour
* Communication skills
* Quality Assurance
* Motivation of employees
* conflict handling