Experience

Rioja Wine

• Spain
• Food and Beverage Services
• 1 - 100 Employee

• Education and Global Projects Manager

  • Jun 2022 - 1 year 7 months

  Logroño, Autonomía de La Rioja, Spain



SYNTRA Brussel

• Belgium
• Professional Training and Coaching
• 1 - 100 Employee

• Wine Educator

  • Oct 2018 - Jun 2022

  Brussels, Brussels Region, Belgium Training aspiring sommeliers and wine aficionados on the wonderful world of wine. Teaching 1-2 sessions per week, including the entire first year (tasting techique, viticulture and vinification) and selected regional topics in the 2nd and 3rd year (France, Spain, Austria, USA, Australia, etc.) of the program.



Self Employed

• Independent Wine Consultant and Educator

  • Sep 2018 - Jun 2022

  Brussels, Brussels Region, Belgium Wine consulting services: • Consulting for importers on wine selection, go-to-market and digital strategy. • Business development as an agent for Spanish bodegas in Belgium. • Export management for the Benelux market for Ardoa Wines • Wine tastings and event management (e.g. I organized a Rioja tasting with 25 wineries for 300 people) • Writing and content generation in English or Dutch (for “Ken Wijn” Magazine, Qualivino, WineWise, social media, etc.) Wine… Show more Wine consulting services: • Consulting for importers on wine selection, go-to-market and digital strategy. • Business development as an agent for Spanish bodegas in Belgium. • Export management for the Benelux market for Ardoa Wines • Wine tastings and event management (e.g. I organized a Rioja tasting with 25 wineries for 300 people) • Writing and content generation in English or Dutch (for “Ken Wijn” Magazine, Qualivino, WineWise, social media, etc.) Wine education activities: • Wine educator at WineWise, offering professional wine certifications (WSET and Wine Scholar Guild) • Wine teacher at SYNTRA Brussels for the sommelier program • Founder of mysterytasting.com, an online wine tasting community • Development of wine education materials for the Vlaamse Wijngilde • Partner and wine educator at WineCab, offering wine courses in Brussels • Freelance services for wine courses, tastings, masterclasses and team building activities Show less



WineWise BeNeLux

• Belgium
• Education Administration Programs
• 1 - 100 Employee

• Wine Educator

  • Sep 2019 - May 2022

  Belgium Teaching WSET levels 2 and 3 for the Belgian APP to students from the wine trade, sommeliers and wine lovers.



CoScale

• Belgium
• IT Services and IT Consulting

• Product Marketing Director

  • Sep 2014 - Sep 2018

  Gent Area, Belgium Leading product marketing and management, while contributing to business development, pre-sales, and partnership activities for a fast growing startup in the microservices and container monitoring space. Responsibilities: - Messaging and positioning of the products within our target markets - Development of marketing content: presentations, case studies, web site, blogs, social media, etc. - Propose and execute awareness and lead generation campaigns - Pre-sales activities:… Show more Leading product marketing and management, while contributing to business development, pre-sales, and partnership activities for a fast growing startup in the microservices and container monitoring space. Responsibilities: - Messaging and positioning of the products within our target markets - Development of marketing content: presentations, case studies, web site, blogs, social media, etc. - Propose and execute awareness and lead generation campaigns - Pre-sales activities: visiting customers and partners to give demos and presentations and understand customer requirements - Providing input to the roadmap by doing market research and collecting customer feedback - Doing competitive research and development of competitive battle cards - Working with industry analysts (e.g. I positioned CoScale as a Gartner “Cool Vendor” in 2018) - Event management: Handling trade shows, conferences, webinars, meetups, etc. Show less



Riverbed Technology

• United States
• Software Development
• 700 & Above Employee

• Technical Alliance Director

  • May 2010 - 2014

  Brussels Area, Belgium Before and after the acquisition of OPNET by Riverbed my role within the partnership and alliance team was to empower our partners with technical and marketing input to allow them to develop successful business services and gain ROI from our solutions for Network and Application Performance Management. Responsibilities: - Seek technical and commercial alliances with other IT companies to bring joint solutions to market - Position OPNET within specific vertical and horizontal market… Show more Before and after the acquisition of OPNET by Riverbed my role within the partnership and alliance team was to empower our partners with technical and marketing input to allow them to develop successful business services and gain ROI from our solutions for Network and Application Performance Management. Responsibilities: - Seek technical and commercial alliances with other IT companies to bring joint solutions to market - Position OPNET within specific vertical and horizontal market segments and identify partners and resellers to collaborate with in these areas - Market research on technologies, trends, customer requirements, and competition, with the aim of creating new offerings or partnerships - Educate partners on OPNET’s offering and work together on joint sales cases and RFIs/RFPs - Create OPNET brand awareness by participating in conferences, workshops, social media, etc. See less Show less



OPNET Technologies, Inc.

• Principal Marketing Product Manager

  • Jun 2007 - Apr 2010

  Handled product management and marketing of a $30M/year portfolio of network management solutions for enterprises and carriers. Responsibilities: - Drive the roadmap by performing technical and business oriented market research to understand market trends and collecting and analyzing customer feedback - Lead a number of cross-divisional teams spanning pre-sales, engineering, consulting and marketing to gather internal and external feedback and make strategic recommendations to… Show more Handled product management and marketing of a $30M/year portfolio of network management solutions for enterprises and carriers. Responsibilities: - Drive the roadmap by performing technical and business oriented market research to understand market trends and collecting and analyzing customer feedback - Lead a number of cross-divisional teams spanning pre-sales, engineering, consulting and marketing to gather internal and external feedback and make strategic recommendations to senior management - Work with engineering to scope out new features and oversee roadmap implementation - Develop messaging, positioning, and value proposition of OPNET’s network management solutions, and roll out marketing literature and web content - Business development support to sales, providing competitive analysis, ROI justification, technical marketing material, and assistance on answering RFI/RFPs - Propose and execute marketing and lead generation programs such as campaigns, promotions, conferences, webinars, mailings, social media, SEO/SEA, etc. - Present vision and solutions at customer meetings, company workshops, and industry events

• Software Team Lead

  • Oct 2003 - Jun 2007

  Leadership over the Transport Network Solutions department of OPNET Technologies, responsible for the entire lifecycle of software solutions for planning and engineering optical networks, and managing an international team of developers. Also provided technical and sales support on strategic accounts, lead proof-of-concept studies, and managed consulting projects with service providers.

• Principal Engineer

  • Jan 2002 - Sep 2003

  Drove strategic new feature development for OPNET’s SP Guru Transport Planner product, including requirement analysis, functional design, and implementation. Worked together closely with key customers, including carriers and equipment vendors, and performed market research on key technologies and network management trends.



Comsof

• Senior Engineer

  • Jun 2000 - Dec 2001

  Managed a 5-person consulting project for Cisco Systems, delivering a Java-based software platform for optical network planning and configuration, on time and within budget.



imec

• Belgium
• Research Services
• 700 & Above Employee

• Research Engineer

  • 1996 - 2000

  Studied technologies and architectures for broadband transport and access networks. Most research was performed in industry projects with service providers and equipment vendors, and resulted in a Ph.D. with 30+ publications in international magazines and conference proceedings.