Gent, Belgium (22/02/2008) – The General Council of Vlerick Leuven Gent Management School today announces the appointment of Professor Philippe Haspeslagh as the new Dean of Vlerick Leuven Gent Management School.

Philippe Haspeslagh (photo: (c) Financial Media - CFO Magazine) will take up his new function as Dean on a full-time basis at the start of the new academic year in September 2008. As of May he will however already be involved on a part-time basis in the management of Vlerick Leuven Gent Management School. In the transition period the responsibilities of the Dean’s office are assumed by the members of the Executive Committee and the General Director.

Philippe Haspeslagh is an alumnus of both the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, where he graduated as Commercial Engineer in 1972 and Vlerick Leuven Gent Management School (at that time part of Ghent University), where he followed PUB in 1972-1973. This is the current Masters in Management, a programme in which he taught until last year. He is also member of the General Council of the Vlerick School. He holds an MBA summa cum laude (1977) and a doctorate (1983) from the Harvard Business School where he was a Baker Scholar. He recently obtained an executive diploma in clinical psychology at INSEAD (2006-2007). 

Chairman Louis Verbeke explains: “We are convinced that Philippe Haspeslagh will strongly contribute to the further development and international growth of Vlerick Leuven Gent Management School, and this thanks to his unique combination of academic expertise, broad business experience and impressive international career. On behalf of the Board of Directors we like to welcome Professor Haspeslagh and wish him a lot of success in his new function as Dean.”

Professor Haspeslagh, currently at INSEAD's Singapore campus, commented on the news of his appointment: "Vlerick Leuven Gent Management School is in a unique position of being able to combine its autonomy as a business school with the reputation and support from its parent universities. The Vlerick School team has shown an amazing record of growth and internationalisation in recent years. I look forward to the opportunity to contribute to strengthening the fundaments of its successful development."

About Philippe Haspeslagh

Philippe Haspeslagh is an alumnus of both the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, where he graduated as Commercial Engineer in 1972 and Vlerick Leuven Gent Management School (at that time part of Ghent University), where he graduated in 1973. He holds an MBA summa cum laude (1977) and a doctorate (1983) from the Harvard Business School where he was a Baker Scholar. He has recently completed an executive diploma in clinical psychology at INSEAD (2006-2007).

Apart from a Visiting Professorship at the Stanford Business School (1984-1985), and the Harvard Business School (1990), and a two year leave as Chief of Cabinet of the Belgian minister of Agriculture and SME's (1996-1997), Professor Haspeslagh spent his whole career at INSEAD.

At INSEAD he is the Paul Desmarais Chaired Professor of Partnership and Active Ownership, directs the M&A programme and has founded the International Directors' Forum.

Professor Haspeslagh' research on corporate strategy in multi-business firms and on mergers and acquisitions have received respectively the best dissertation award (1984) and best book award (1993) of the American Academy of Management. He is the author of numerous prize-winning cases and has won INSEAD's best teacher award twice, most recently in 2005. After the retirement of Professor Vlerick in 1990 and until 2007 Professor Haspeslagh was a part-time Extraordinary Professor at the Ghent University, taking over Professor Vlerick's general management course first in PUB and later in the Masters in Management.

As an entrepreneur Philippe Haspeslagh has been involved, amongst others, in the creation of Dujardin Foods, Procuritas, Capricorn, Quest for Growth, and Vitaya. He is Chairman of Dujardin Foods, a Board member of Kinepolis and Vandemoortele, an Advisory Board member of Governance for Owners, and a member of the General Council of Vlerick Leuven Gent Management School. Over the years Professor Haspeslagh has advised numerous CEO's and top management teams of listed and large family firms in corporate strategy, mergers and acquisitions and corporate governance.

About Vlerick Leuven Gent Management School

Vlerick Leuven Gent Management School is the autonomous management school of Ghent University and K.U.Leuven. It was founded in 1953 by André Vlerick, a professor and entrepreneur, and has been Belgium’s leading management school for over half a century now. In recent years, the School has been steadily climbing the international rankings in the Financial Times and the Economist, and is in the process of achieving its ambition of figuring among the top 10 in Europe. The School has three campuses: 160 staff members among which 65 expert faculty, researchers, students and managers operate in Ghent, Leuven or St. Petersburg (Russia). Soon the School also offers the Beijing International MBA (BiMBA), a part-time and full-time MBA programme. This is an MBA alliance between Vlerick Leuven Gent Management School and the China Centre for Economic Research of Peking University.

About 500 students enrol for our Masters and MBA programmes annually. In addition over 7,000 executives attend general and specialised management development programmes each year. The School also offers custom-designed training for individual companies.

As an academic school we offer 25 research platforms closely connected to the business world. We have over 12,500 active alumni in more than 100 different countries.

The School’s management courses meet the highest quality standards. Vlerick Leuven Gent Management School is one of a select group of institutions to hold the three main international accreditations: the American AACSB, the British AMBA and the European EQUIS quality label.