Piet Haerens

Piet Haerens is the founder of haedes, where he has served as Chief Soul & Strategy Officer since January 2020. He is based in Gent. In July 2019 he founded S@lto Consulting, which he also still runs, and from October 2020 to September 2025 he was Vice President of the Belgian-Portuguese Chamber of Commerce.

He spent more than a decade at IMDC, joining in June 2007 as a project manager for coastal and marine infrastructure and for offshore wind farms, and going on to work as an ISO auditor, knowledge manager for coastal and marine infrastructures, commercial head of the offshore, dredging and environment department, and finally CEO from January 2017 to January 2019. Earlier he was a project manager and advisor at HAECON INTERNATIONAL from 2000 to 2007, a researcher at Universidade do Algarve - CIMA from 2005 to 2006, and a project engineer at Geologica.

He holds an MSc in engineering with a focus on topography from KU Leuven Ghent Campus and an MSc in coastal and marine studies from Universidade do Algarve, and has since studied regenerative development and kynology.