Bart
Verreydt.
Bart studied in Leuven and has a background in business management and marketing before starting his career at 3M in 1999. During his rich international corporate career of 22 years with various multinationals such as 3M, Kimberly-Clark, Halyard Health and Owens & Minor, Bart evolved from BeNeLux marketer to Vice-President & General Manager EMEA with a P&L responsibility of >$250M and a team of >350 FTE. He also served on the board of directors of a joint venture in Riyadh - Saudi Arabia and was asked to respectively manage a spin-off and carve out at EMEA level.
At the same time, he also obtained several postgraduate degrees in sales management and financial controlling and also attended several advanced leadership programs at Vlerick and at the 3M US academy, and became a certified Lean Six Sigma Green Belt. More recently, he took the "director effectiveness" course at Guberna - the Institute for Directors, as well as "Transition to General Management" at Insead.
With over 22 years of international experience in sales/business development, marketing, operations, general management and business transformation, gained in different B2B sectors in different regions and multinationals, Bart decided in early 2021 to leave the corporate world and refocus on the more entrepreneurial world. He started his own management company from which he already advised and helped scale several startups and SMEs (internationally), or sits on the advisory board. In parallel, he started his own modest healthcare startup (co-creation of devices together with the healthcare sector) and became senior partner at Cross International at the end of 2022. A choice of the heart, because he loves to work with people, share his knowledge & make people and companies grow. Early 2024 he transitioned to the role of Managing Partner of Cross International.
Bart works hybrid and commutes between the various offices and clients of Cross International. He is primarily responsible for the day-to-day management and further development of the company, as well as (strategic) business development, sales and marketing, further expanding the international network Inquirint and providing leadership advisory and consultancy services to growth companies.
Outside of work, Bart is a proud dad of 2 teenagers, proud partner of Amber, an avid (trail) runner who loves sports in general, nature, travel and good & healthy food. Wellbeing and preventive healthcare are 2 of his hobbyhorses, as is the ESG matter. In addition, technology, entrepreneurship, working with people and advising startups & SMEs is a great passion.
His motto comes from James Dean: "Dream as if you'll live forever, live as if you'll die today."