Proximus SA — Board/Management Information 2011

Mar 18, 2011

Curriculum Vitae

Dr. Pierre De Muelenaere

I. PERSONAL DETAILS

Pierre De Muelenaere was born in Berchem-Sainte-Agathe (Brussels, Belgium) in 1958 and lives in Court-Saint-Etienne (Belgium). He is married to Jocelyne Gobyn and father of Julie, Guillaume and Olivier.

II. ACADEMIC QUALIFICATIONS

• Civil Engineering Degree in Electronics University of Louvain-La-Neuve (1981)
• Doctor in Applied Sciences (Ph.D.) University of Louvain-La-Neuve (1987)

III. PRIZES-SCOLARSHIP-HONOURS

• Scholarship of the I.R.S.I.A. (1981-1984)
• 1987 Founder of I.R.I.S.
• 1989 Innovation Award for Small Enterprises from the Walloon Region
• 1993 Oscar for export Award from the Belgian office for Foreign Exchange
• 1999 Best Belgian IPO Award from the Brussels Stock Exchange
• 2001 Manager of the Year Award from Trends-Tendances
• 2002 Entrepreneur of the Year Award from Ernst&Young
• 2007 Innovation Award for Large Enterprises from the Walloon Region
• 2008 ICT Personality of the Year Award from DataNews

IV. POSITIONS HELD

• 1. Executive positions:
• a. President & CEO of I.R.I.S. Group
• 1. Non-executive positions:
• a. Member of the board of Pairi Daiza (Listed, B)
• b. Member of the board of BSB (Listed, B)
• c. Member of the board of Guberna (B)

V. CAREER BACKGROUND

• 1. Time line
• 1981 : Civil Engineering Degree in Electronics from the UCL
• 1981-1984 : Researcher IRSIA
• 1987 : Ph.D. in Applied Sciences from UCL
• 1987 : Founder of I.R.I.S.
• 1987-1988 : Vice-President of R&D at I.R.I.S.
• 1989-1990 : Managing Director of I.R.I.S.
• 1991-2000 : Co-CEO of I.R.I.S. with Pierre Rion
• 2001-2011 : Co-CEO of I.R.I.S. with Etienne Van de Kerckhove

2. Additional information

• Pierre De Muelenaere's original background is in chip (Integrated Circuits) design. During his PhD, Pierre developed new microprocessor architectures dedicated to very fast image processing and recognition. A prototype of a complete OCR (Optical Character Recognition) system was also built in the University labs, based on a new generation of custom Image Processing ICs.
• With the financial backing of the Belgian holding company Ackermans & van Haaren, and together with fellow PhD student, Jean-Didier Legat, Pierre founded I.R.I.S. (Image Recognition Integrated Systems) in April 1987, to commercialize this invention and to develop and market Optical Character Recognition (OCR) and Intelligent Document Recognition (IDR) products. The initial staff was composed of a small number of engineers and scientists, coming from the UCL.
• After 3 years of investment, the company reached the break-even point in 1990 and became profitable in 1991. Since then, the company has achieved a constant increase in turnover, profitability and geographical expansion. Originally Vice-President of R&D, Pierre De Muelenaere became General Manager in 1989 in charge of all I.R.I.S. operations. In 1992, Pierre De Muelenaere and Pierre Rion performed a Management buy-out of I.R.I.S.
• In 1999, I.R.I.S. was listed on the Brussels Stock Exchange, (BXS, which later became Nyse-Euronext) and received the "1999 Best Belgian IPO Award" from BXS. Since its IPO, the company experienced very rapid growth, investing significantly in R&D, new products and new complete IDR, ECM and ICT solutions, developing its international presence, and growing its profitability.
• The company, which had 60 employees in 1998, now has more than 550, with offices in Belgium, Luxembourg, France, Germany, The Netherlands, Norway, USA and Hong Kong. In 2008, the turnover was over €100 million.
• Over the years, Pierre De Muelenaere has gained a solid international experience, establishing strategic agreements with international partners in the USA, Europe and Asia (such as HP, Canon, Kodak, Adobe, Fujitsu, Siemens, etc.). Pierre remains very involved in defining the R&D vision of I.R.I.S and has contributed to the development of many new technologies and products and to a number of patents filed by the company.