Vlerick Award

The Vlerick Award is a Belgian award granted by Vlerick Alumni, the official alumni organisation of Vlerick Business School. The nominees must be Belgian managers with excelling management skills who have achieved sustainable results within an important multinational or organisation from an international perspective.

The winner of the Vlerick Award remains undecided until the very last moment, as it is the public who decides. Before the event, the public can cast their vote online through the website of Vlerick Alumni. The winner is determined by counting these online votes together with the result of the live voting from the audience during the show.

Françoise Chombar (CEO of Melexis) was chosen as the winner of the Vlerick Award 2016, which took place on Thursday 2 June 2016 at Hotel Le Plaza in Brussels. It’s the first time that a female CEO took the prestigious award home.

Ms Chombar is the co-founder of the chip manufacturer Melexis and has been the CEO for 12 years. Before that she had been the COO of the company for 6 years. Although her contribution to the company cannot be trivialised, she attributes its success to her team which counts 900 employees word-wide. Ms Chombar was chosen via live-voting by an audience of more than 300 participants in combination with the online voting beforehand. She was up against some tough competition: the other nominees were Ms Ann and Mr Bart Claes of the Belgian clothing retailer JBC and Mr Rudi Pauwels of the biotech company Biocartis. Mr Domb, CEO of Pairi Daiza, unfortunately wasn't able to compete for the Award due to the birth of a baby giant panda cub at Pairi Daiza.

The theme for the award in 2016 was "Legacy and Promise: Building on yesterday, heading into tomorrow". The nominees that year were (in alphabetical order):

On 4 June 2015 at Hotel Le Plaza, Brussels, the 15th Vlerick Award was granted to Alain Bernard, CEO of DEME. The audience – who was able to vote both via internet as well as live at the event – chose him, because he led his company as business leader in its market segment with sustained results to the top.

The theme of 2015 was ‘Legacy & Promise’: each of the nominees leads a company with a rich past and strong legacy that has to be defended, while also facing pressure to develop and grow the business still further, thereby realising the promise of the future.

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