Francoise Chombar

Françoise Chombar is Chairwoman and co-founder of Melexis. She served as the CEO of Melexis for 18 years (from 2003 to 2021). She is currently a member of the Board of Umicore, the Board of Soitec, Chairwoman of the Board of BioRICS, and a member of the Advisory Board to Byteflies. As of May 1, 2022, she has joined the Board of Antwerp Management School. She is equally president of the STEM platform, an advisory board to the Flemish government, aiming to encourage young people to pursue a Science, Technology, Engineering, or Mathematics education. Françoise Chombar’s long-term commitment to actively advocating more STEM and more gender balance is driven by the profound belief in their positive societal impact. She is the recipient of numerous awards including the Vlerick Award, the Global Prize for Women Entrepreneurs of BNP Paribas, ICT-Personality of the Year by Datanews, the Science Fellowship at the VUB, Honorary Award by the Flemish Community, the Computable Lifetime Achievement Award and an Honorary Award by the KUL. Ms. Chombar holds a Master’s Degree in interpreting (Dutch, English, and Spanish) from Ghent University.