Brussels, 6 december 2011 – After having led VK for almost 30 years as CEO, Peter Van Kerckhove has appointed his successor. Paul Corbeel will assume the function of CEO, while Peter will act as Chairman of VK’s Advisory Board. Paul Corbeel (43) started his career as Project at VK as Project Architect and successfylly made his way to a position as Managing Director.

VK was created in 1952 by Hubert Van Kerckhove. With his engineering and architecture company, Hubert Van Kerckhove made a key contribution to the post-war agro-industrial expansion and infrastructure development in Europe. In the seventies, VK carried out its first Healthcare assignments, today one of the key activities of the group. In 1978, Peter Van Kerckhove joined his father’s company as CEO. Combining organic growth with strategic acquisitions, he has developed the group into what it is today. An independent, multi-disciplinary and international player with branches in Belgium, Kazakhstan and recently Vietnam.

Peter Van Kerckhove was unrivalled in the way he managed, thanks to his international network, to win a number of prestigious projects. Projects like the Antwerp Law Courts, for which he himself travelled to London to convince Lord Richard Rogers to compete together. Or the new NATO Headquarters, currently under construction and the largest construction site in Belgium.

Paul Corbeel joined VK as Project Architect in 1997 and played a key role from the start as Lead Architect for the Antwerp Law Courts project. Following the completion of this project, he took the lead of the Architecture Division of the Group, which is now solely focused on Healthcare. Within the Healthcare market, VK offers a total service package: from masterplanning, through programming, architecture, engineering and interior design to landscaping and infrastructure. Paul has the ambition to develop VK further internationally as well as boost its engineering activities, in collaboration with external architects.

We wish to thank Peter Van Kerckhove for his contribution to this success story and to congratulate Paul Corbeel with this new challenge.