Johan Cardoen

Until April 2020, Johan Cardoen was Managing Director of VIB, a dedicated life science research organization based in Belgium. In this role, Johan was in addition to the executive management responsible for VIB’s Innovation and Business Team. Today he is a Board Director at Biotalys (BE) and Aphea.Bio (both are VIB agro spin-offs), Complix (BE) and is Chairman of Meiogenix (an Institut Curie spin-off, FR). In the past he held board positions at argenx, Actogenix (now Intrexon), Applied-Maths (now bioMérieux), Pronota (now Mycartis), Multiplicom (now Agilent), GST (now Boehringer Ingelheim) and was Chairman of Flandersbio from 20007-2012) and he was also Chairman of the LP Board of V-Bio Ventures, a dedicated life sciences investment fund, which is focused on early-stage investments in life sciences (2015-2020).

Until 2012, Johan was CEO of CropDesign N.V., today part of BASF (Ghent, Belgium), a biotechnology spin-off from VIB. Johan joined CropDesign in 1999 as Vice President Business Development and became CEO of CropDesign in 2004. He developed and implemented a dual track strategy (IPO/trade sale) which led to an acquisition of CropDesign by BASF Plant Science in 2006.

Prior to joining CropDesign, Johan was Head of Technology Acquisition at AgrEvo Hoechst Schering (now Bayer CropScience) and was responsible for all biotechnology-related technology acquisitions and he started his professional career as business development manager at Plant Genetic Systems (PGS) in 1988. Johan received his Ph.D. in biology from KU Leuven, Belgium (1987) and a business degree from KU Leuven (1990).