As Applied Economics Scientist, and following a career at the Brussels Stock Exchange and at British Petroleum for 14 years in functions varying from ICT to financial and business analyst in consumer & industry and pan-European business & financials harmonisation projects, I got attracted to concentrate on scouting, screening and developping business start-up potential within the non-core activities of global organisations: so called industrial spin-offs.

By doing so, I became passionate about SMEs, and the way they can enforce an ecosystem around large enterprises. At VITO (Flemish Institute for Technological Research), I started working with a team of business developpers and researchers to promote and demonstrate sustainable technologies to SMEs, and to guide them when implementing these technologies in their industrial processes, buildings or new concepts. Themes were sustainable industry/chemistry, energy, materials and upcycling, sustainable landuse and preventive health issues related to environmental factors.

This experience provided the necessary basis for an extra position: to build further on the work already done for the Flanders Cleantech Association (FCA), an initiative of VITO. FCA gathers industry and stakeholders around clean technologies in Flanders in order to gain exposure to influential networks, new markets, potential investors, innovative technologies and best practices.