About me

 

I was born in Dendermonde (Belgium) in 1968, a year of change. I like to believe that this is the reason why I am so passionate about change and innovation.

(c) Pieter BaertI started my first business when I was in my early twenties, back in 1993-1994. It was a webagency, actually it was the very first webagency in Belgium and one of the first online agencies in Europe.

Today I am the founding partner of Dear Media, a consulting company, specialized in new media innovation.

Over the last 15 years, I was involved in a dozen of start-up companies, all in interactive media and digital innovation. Although I mainly work from Belgium, I travel a lot and I have had the international experience of setting up companies in Paris, Munich, London and Amsterdam. 

I have been CEO, chairman of the board, evangelist, ... but I consider myself mainly as an entrepreneur: someone who sees change and opportunities before the rest of the market does, and then creates business around it. And this is also what I want to be for my customers: an advisor who thinks like an entrepreneur, someone who can introduce new ideas into an organization, but who also has the pragmatic approach to translate theory into accountable practice.

I am passionate about media and about technology. And what merges the two better than digital media? I had the enormous luck to be involved in much of the media innovation for the last two decades:

  • the introduction and growth of the internet
  • mobile internet (first with WAP, followed by I-mode, and today booming with the iPhone, LBS, ...)
  • interactive TV (Belgacom CyberTV in 1997, the VRT IO project in 2000, the commercial launch of Telenet iDTV in 2006 and more recently the introduction of the Philips NetTV in the market)
  • rich media (online video, internet and interactive radio for KBC, Mars, Kreatos, VRT, ...)
  • social media (Social Media Sessions, MNM, Goedenwel.nl, the ConnectR, ...)

Check out the DearMedia website to see what I am currently doing for my clients.

On a personal note. I am married and have one daughter. I live between the cows and farmers far from busy city-life and I like to read and listen to music a lot.