Barco Names Jan De Witte as Next CEO
Barco announced today that current CEO Eric Van Zele plans to retire later this year. In anticipation of Van Zele’s retirement, the board has appointed Jan De Witte, a former corporate officer of the General Electric Company, as CEO-designate. Jan De Witte will join Barco’s Core Leadership Team in June 2016 to effectively take over as CEO as of Oct. 1, 2016.
Van Zele will continue to serve on the board of directors to ensure continuity of leadership and strategic focus for the company.
De Witte, 52, was until recently president and CEO of General Electric’s Global Healthcare IT activity, a close to $2 billion revenue business with 4,000+ employees worldwide that provides clinical- and system-software solutions to healthcare providers on a global basis. Over 16 years of increasing responsibility at General Electric’s Healthcare business based in the United States and France, De Witte has demonstrated leadership in sales growth acceleration, operational efficiencies, organizational effectiveness, supply chain management, technology and product development and strategic realignment. He has been a General Electric company officer since 2007.
Prior to his tenure at General Electric, Mr. De Witte spent five years at McKinsey & Company Inc. in Brussels, Amsterdam and Zurich, where he served clients in the industrial and transportation sector on strategy and business development, business process re-engineering and operational improvement. Between 1987 and 1991, he held positions in supply chain and production management at The Procter & Gamble Company in its Belgium operations.
De Witte holds a master degree in Electro Mechanical Engineering (1987) from the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (Belgium) and an MBA from Harvard Business School (1993).