Xavier Heymans, CEO

As CEO of Zea, Xavier Heymans manages the operations and strategy of the association. Xavier is member of the Advisory Board of the Plone Foundation, and the Foundation representative at the European Commission.

Specializing in management and active in open source since 2002, Xavier has an expertise in the organizational challenges facing SMEs to deliver professional solutions based on an open source shared technology.

Xavier is co-founder and representative of OBOOE, the European Federation for the Open Source Industry, which represents over 1000 open source SME across Europe.

Prior to joining Zea, Xavier acquired management experience in multinationals, non-profits and educational projects. He has served long-term missions in South America.

In Argentina, he served as Project and Safety Manager during the privatization process of the natural gas utilities. He took an active role in the reorganization of the company including the start up activities of the technical office, the management of technical investments worth $20M/year and the development of a network of suppliers and contractors. In Belgium, he was Sales Manager in a Process control business in a US subsidiary, and later, involved in the development of small SMEs.

Xavier has experience in non-profit organizations and collaborative network. In Chile, he served for 3 years in the start up of a technical school and the evaluation of social projects. Since then, he supports non-profit organizations active in social activities as well as in education.

Xavier graduated in 1989 as Civil Engineer in mechanics at the Catholic University of Louvain-La-Neuve, Belgium. Married, father of 5, he is fluent in French, English and Spanish. Xavier is based in Louvain-La-Neuve, Belgium.