Françoise Chombar (born May 1962) is a Belgian businesswoman. She is the current CEO and one of the original founders of the

semiconductor A semiconductor is a material with electrical conductivity between that of a conductor and an insulator. Its conductivity can be modified by adding impurities (" doping") to its crystal structure. When two regions with different doping level ...

company . She took over as a CEO from her husband and co-founder Rudi de Winter in 2004, having previously served as the COO of the company since 1997. She is also a non-executive board member for Soitec and

Umicore Umicore N.V., known as ''Union Minière'' before 2001, is a Belgian-French multinational materials technology company headquartered in Brussels, Belgium. It was formed in 1989 by the merger of four companies in the mining and smelting industri ...

, and a member of the Advisory Board at Byteflies. She has a master's degree from

Ghent University Ghent University (, abbreviated as UGent) is a Public university, public research university located in Ghent, in the East Flanders province of Belgium. Located in Flanders, Ghent University is the second largest Belgian university, consisting o ...

in interpreting Dutch-English-Spanish.

STEM and gender equality work

Françoise Chombar is the president of STEM Platform, an independent advisory body to the

Flemish government The Flemish Government ( ) is the executive branch of the Flemish Community and the Flemish Region of Belgium. It consists of a government cabinet, headed by the Minister-President of Flanders, Minister-President and accountable to the Flemish Par ...

on children's

STEM Stem or STEM most commonly refers to: * Plant stem, a structural axis of a vascular plant * Stem group * Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics Stem or STEM can also refer to: Language and writing * Word stem, part of a word respon ...

education. She also promotes

gender equality Gender equality, also known as sexual equality, gender egalitarianism, or equality of the sexes, is the state of equal ease of access to resources and opportunities regardless of gender, including economic participation and decision-making, an ...

through involvement in organizations including Women on Board, an association that aims to give women better access to directorial roles in Belgian companies, and SOFIA Academy, a networking program for female managers and entrepreneurs in

Hasselt University Hasselt University ( Dutch: ''Universiteit Hasselt or UHasselt'') is a public research university with campuses in Hasselt and Diepenbeek, Belgium. It has more than 7,500 students and 1,800 academic, administrative and technical staff (2023). Th ...

, where she has been a mentor for 17 years.

Recognition

In 2016, she won the Vlerick Award, given out by the

Vlerick Business School Vlerick Business School ("Vlerick") is a Belgian business school with campuses in Ghent, Leuven, and Brussels. It is a result of a merger of MBA programmes of the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven and of the ''Instituut Professor Vlerick voor Mana ...

for excellence in management. It was the first time the management award was won by a female entrepreneur. In 2018, Chombar was awarded the

BNP Paribas BNP Paribas (; sometimes referred to as BNPP or BNP) is a French multinational universal bank and financial services holding company headquartered in Paris. It was founded in 2000 from the merger of two of France's foremost financial instituti ...

Global Prize for Women Entrepreneurs, and was named the ICT Personality of the Year by Belgian magazine DataNews. She was also awarded a Science

Fellow A fellow is a title and form of address for distinguished, learned, or skilled individuals in academia, medicine, research, and industry. The exact meaning of the term differs in each field. In learned society, learned or professional society, p ...

ship at Free University of Brussels-VUB the same year. In 2019, Chombar received the Flemish Community Honor for her work as a STEM and gender balance advocate and was named the Limburg Entrepreneur of the Year by Belgian newspaper

Het Belang van Limburg (; "The Interest of Limburg") is a Dutch language regional newspaper in Belgium. History and profile was founded in 1933 as a merger of several weekly magazines. The paper is owned and published by Concentra. It is published in tabloid forma ...

. In 2020, she was elected to Inspiring Fifty Belgium, a list of the 50 most inspiring women in the Belgian technology sector.

References

1962 births Living people {{DEFAULTSORT:Chombar, Françoise Ghent University alumni