At the beginning of February, John Baekelmans will move to New York as a technology diplomat for Flanders Investment and Trade (FIT). Jan Vercammen takes over his job as CEO of Rombit.
Baekelmans must help Flemish technology companies to establish themselves in the United States and guide American companies to find a place in Flanders. This concerns collaborations and investments with Flemish companies. ‘A job that is tailor-made for me’, says Baekelmans.
After his master’s degree in computer engineering at the University of Antwerp, Baekelmans started working for Siemens as a network engineer for large telephone networks. After six years, in 1996, he moved to Cisco as director of business development. In 2006 he was recruited by FifthPlay as chief technology officer, but in the summer of 2008 he moved to Cisco again, this time in London as CTO responsible for smart connected communities, later for the ‘internet of everything solutions group’.
In 2016, he left for Imec as vice president of system & software solutions to become CEO of Rombit a few years later. His replacement Jan Vercammen was CEO of Dematic for almost 25 years.
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