Overview
Ingrid Willems is CEO and cofounder of DataScouts, a company she cofounded in March 2016, and is based in Brussels. Since August 2021 she has also been a co-founder of foodleap, and she has owned WFMC since May 2011.
Between May 2016 and June 2021 she served as a non-executive board member of Floréac nv, and from March 2015 to June 2018 she sat on the board of directors of Startups.be. She was entrepreneur in residence at imec from September 2014 to September 2016, following three years as COO of Immoweb from July 2011.
Earlier in her career she spent from January 2004 to July 2011 at Wolters Kluwer Transport Services as CMO of Teleroute and general manager of Tivios. She was a sourcing project manager at Freemarkets Inc, a senior product manager at Mediagold, and product manager for notebooks at Siemens from July 1994.
She holds an MSc in industrial engineering from Katholieke Hogeschool 'Sint-Lieven', Gent, an MBA from the University of Augsburg, and an MBA from the University of Pittsburgh Joseph M. Katz Graduate School of Business.
Career history
In the news
- Foodleap cheer-out to Greencovery! €1M raised to scale its cocoa upcycling technology to industrial production. Congratulations to the Greencovery team! Greencovery is a great example of how food industry side streams can become valuable new ingredients: recovering cocoa fiber, cocoa extract and soluble fiber from cocoa side streams, while creating new options for food manufacturers looking for natural flavours, clean labels and lower sugar formulations. With commercial batches validated and production now scaling towards
- Foodleap cheer-out to Paleo! €2M raised to support the commercial scale-up of its animal-free heme proteins. Congratulations to the Paleo team! Paleo is a great example of how precision fermentation can help tackle one of the key challenges in the protein transition: creating alternatives that deliver on the taste, aroma, colour and nutrition consumers expect. Using yeast fermentation, Paleo produces animal-free, non-GMO myoglobins — proteins naturally found in animal muscle, with applications in plant-based alternatives to
- Transitions are messy. Data and AI can help us recognise patterns and discover opportunities, but they do not create change on their own. Progress happens when technology meets human understanding, communication and collaboration across the value chain. Over the past months, conversations with food transition organisations across the globe and work with practitioners have repeatedly confirmed this. Working on a joint project with Gil Dumarey, Laurence Claerhout, Daphné Vlerické and Adeline Barras were one of those rare moments when
- The shift towards healthy and functional food isn’t happening in one breakthrough. It’s happening across the system. Food is moving from general nutrition towards a more intentional role in prevention and long-term health. The winners won’t have the boldest claims. They’ll connect the strongest evidence with scalable production, consumer trust and real accessibility. That takes more than innovation. It takes a thriving ecosystem. Discover who is shaping the transition on www.foodleap.com #HealthyFood #FunctionalFood
- What if the real breakthrough in food upcycling isn’t a single technology or ingredient, but the ecosystem learning how to work together? This overview shows exactly why the food transition requires ecosystem thinking and collective intelligence. Side-stream owners, ingredient innovators, food safety experts, technology providers, researchers, investors and brands each hold a different piece of the puzzle. Only by connecting those pieces can we turn underused resources into safe, scalable and economically viable ingredients. The
- What stands out to me is not just the pace of innovation, but the growing need to connect the ecosystem around it. Food-system change depends on bringing together the right partners across the value chain, partners willing to invest jointly resources, infrastructure, brains in developing viable business models, guided by a shared belief in the transition they want to achieve. Through DataScouts, we operate and further develop Foodleap to make these developments, capabilities and connections more visible. Curious to hear: which
- A powerful example of why insights and scenario thinking matter. They help us look beyond today’s choices and understand how different pathways could reshape entire food and agriculture ecosystems. I am a strong believer that connecting data, emerging signals and perspectives across an ecosystem enables better decisions and stronger collaboration. Through Foodleap, we’re creating a digital space where food-system actors can discover relevant insights, connect with others and move towards collective action.
- One year ago, together with Foodvalley, Danish Technological Institute - Production and Food, Industriens Fond, we launched the Global Food Upcycling Map. Congratulations to everyone who helped make this initiative possible. Today it connects 🌍 175 organisations in📍 22 countries across the food upcycling value chain. But the food transition never stand still. Every week new startups emerge, technologies evolve, partnerships form and markets shift. Foodleap has grown into a platform that combines community, continuous ecosystem
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