As civil engineer construction graduate, Luc Verbist (Belgium) started his career at Mercator where he built up a vast experience in legal and contractual matters and sharpened his negotiation skills. After 5 years he moved to the publishing industry, the VUM group (now Corelio). He had the responsibility of information manager in the commercial department. He later on moved to the ICT department of VUM where he became responsible for all ICT projects on company level.

After 10 years in the publishing industry, Luc Verbist changed of industry sector and started working at IBM as CIO and as Operations Manager of the capital markets division in Belgium. Within a year, De Persgroep headhunted him away to take his current position as CIO, a position which Luc holds for 15 years now. As CIO, he is heading an ICT staff of 225 and has an operational responsibility for supporting the Belgian and Dutch activities. He is closely involved in the merger and acquisition strategy of De Persgroep and is leading the ICT integration of newly acquired businesses.

Check out our other 2013 Finalists of the European CIO of the Year Award on www.europeancio2013.com