This year, the editors of Computable Belgium are presenting the Lifetime Achievement Award to Françoise Chombar, the CEO of chip specialist Melexis. She succeeds André Knaepen, the current chairman of Cegeka. She will be presented with the prize on Thursday 1 April at noon during the online event Infosecurity.be, Data & Cloud Expo.

Computable presents the Lifetime Achievement award to Françoise Chombar during the digital event Infosecurity.be, Data & Cloud Expo. During the session, which takes place on Thursday 1 April at 12:00 pm, she will talk about it & business in times of resilience and Covid-19.

Françoise Chombar recently announced that after seventeen years as CEO, he would hand over the helm to Melexis veteran Marc Biron and take over the gavel from Roland Duchâtelet. Together with him and her husband Rudi De Winter, she founded Melexis more than thirty years ago. The Ypres company, which specializes in chips for the automotive industry, has grown into a multinational with a solid reputation. Cars are increasingly equipped with sensors and semiconductors. On average they contain fifty to 150 chips. For example, Melexis supplies no fewer than 32 semiconductors for the Tesla Model 3, and even 47 chips for the BMW 350e.

Under Chombar’s policy, Melexis turned out to be one of the pearls of the Belgian it biotope. Last year’s turnover exceeded half a billion euros with a net profit of just under seventy million. It has recently also been listed in the Bel20. It is also striking that Melexis is led by three ladies. Besides Chombar, Veerle Lozie is the CIO while Karen Van Griensven is the CFO. All three have been awarded several times.

As a graduate interpreter she is of course good at languages ​​and she also feels completely European. Why Melexis is doing so well? ‘We listen better to our customers. This also has to do with our corporate culture. We want our people to enjoy their work. And that reflects on the customers, ‘she says in an interview with De Tijd.

STEM education

Françoise Chombar, who will turn 59 at the end of May, is also chair of the STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) working group that advocates for more STEM in education. She is also working to encourage more girls in that direction. For example, only one in four technically skilled people is a woman. Moreover, in Belgium only thirteen out of a thousand graduates are technologically trained. In Ireland it is thirty. That puts a mortgage on our industry. She herself is an example of how ladies can successfully grow in top positions.