Didier Bellens

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Didier Bellens (b. 9 June 1955) is a Belgian businessman. He is the CEO of Belgacom, the leading telecommunications company of Belgium. He is married and has two children.

[edit] Edcuation

He graduated in 1978 as a commercial engineer at the Solvay Business School of the Université Libre de Bruxelles (Brussels).

[edit] Career

Didier Bellens started his career in 1978 as an auditor at Deloitte & Touche where he worked until 1981. During his time at Deloitte he shared the responsibility for the audits of the Belgian subsidiary of General Motors. In 1981 he joined the financial staff of the Compagnie Brussel Lambert holding (GBL), where he would stay until 1985. The Compagnie Brussel Lambert has participations in several financial and industrial companies, such as the Bank Brussel Lambert and Royale Belge. In 1981 Albert Frère became an important shareholder of the holding, besides the Lambert family. Didier Bellens worked on the analysis of potential investments and managing the investment portfolio.

In 1985 he joined the Pargesa Holding in Geneva as assistant director. Cobepa and GBL, together with the Desmarais family had a share in the company. Didier Bellens managed the participations of the GBL group. In 1992 he joined the Groupe Bruxelles Lambert as chairman of the Board of directors, where he represented the group at Royale Belge, the Bank Brussel Lambert and the RTL Group (Radio Télévision Luxembourg). He participated in the negotiations on the merger between CTL (Compagnie Luxembourgeoise de Télédiffusion) and UFA. He also participated in the exchnage of shares between RTL and Bertelsmann, which gave RTL aminority participation in Bertelsmann. He would stay at GBL until 2000, when he joined the RTL Group as its CEO, which was created that year through the merger of CTL-UFA and Pearson Television (now FremantleMedia).