Founder profile

After nearly 20 years of professional experience, I have developed expertise in environmental assessment, data analysis, risk assessment, project leadership, and stakeholder engagement. I founded Knowledge for Sustainability to bring this experience to businesses through independent analysis and practical support. I aim to help companies understand how environmental and social issues can affect their operations and financial performance, and use that understanding to guide decisions and action.

The consultancy also provides an avenue to share what I have learned, strengthen client teams' capabilities, and help train a new generation of sustainability and financial risk professionals.

I hold the Sustainability and Climate Risk certificate from the Global Association of Risk Professionals (GARP). This training developed my knowledge of climate- and nature-related risks, scenario analysis, and their potential financial implications. My training in Environmental Impact Assessment and Mitigation strengthened my ability to identify impacts, apply the mitigation hierarchy, assess residual effects, and incorporate stakeholder consultation. Together, these competencies complement my practical experience and help me connect environmental evidence with business concerns.

As a Senior Consultant and Research Coordinator, I have designed projects, supervised implementation, prepared budgets, and worked with external partners. These responsibilities have required analytical judgement, coordination of people and resources, and clear communication with different audiences, including senior management.

I have also served on a specialist task force reviewing environmental work for a large-scale development project. In this role, I assessed baseline studies, data-collection methods, and proposed mitigation measures; I provided written recommendations and subsequently checked whether they had been acted upon. This experience informs my approach to assessing the quality of evidence and identifying what is needed for a sound decision.

My goal is to make complex information clear and useful, so that clients can understand their risk exposure, set priorities and act with greater confidence.

SELECTED EXPERIENCE

The following examples draw on my professional experience across consulting, project leadership and independent environmental review.

Founder  |  2025–Present

Knowledge for Sustainability | knowledgeforsustainability.com | Brussels, Belgium

• Founded and lead a sustainability consultancy whose professional services include financial-risk assessment.
• Within the consultancy's financial-risk assessment offering, develop approaches to connect ecological evidence with nature-related operational and financial risks.

Scientific Lead (2007–2009) / Research Coordinator (2009–2026)

Centre for Research and Conservation, Royal Zoological Society of Antwerp

• Led research design, methods, data analysis, quality control, reporting and project oversight.
• More than 15 years of biodiversity monitoring and human-impact studies using baselines, field validation, indicator selection, spatial evidence and statistical analysis.
• Converted measured environmental change and impact pathways into mitigation, restoration and monitoring priorities relevant to site management.
• Coordinated specialists and field teams; trained personnel for consistent protocols and reliable evidence.

Biodiversity-Credit Research Lead | 2025–2026

Lisoko Forest Landscape, Democratic Republic of Congo

• Designed a forest-landscape biodiversity-credit research proposal designed to evaluate ecological integrity, measurement cost, stakeholder acceptance, and potential financial usability.
• Formulated an integrated measurement approach combining species, habitat, and human-pressure indicators with eDNA and passive acoustics to quantify ecological condition and change.
• Incorporated additionality, stakeholder validation, cost-effectiveness and monitoring requirements into the proposed approach for achieving credible, measurable biodiversity outcomes.

Scientific Supervisor – Reciprocal Environmental Agreements Project  |  2019–2024

Centre for Research and Conservation, Royal Zoological Society of Antwerp

• Led comparative evaluation across 17 villages, measuring behavioural, ecological and socioeconomic outcomes for participating and non-participating groups.
• Supervised a project staff member whose fieldwork included stakeholder engagement; oversaw longitudinal monitoring to assess implementation and strengthen environmental performance.

Consultant / Expert – Environmental & Biodiversity Assignments  |  2009–2023

Multiple organizations: Undertook assignments as a senior consultant or consultancy team member

• Designed studies, budgets and logistics; led field teams; monitored protocol compliance; analysed evidence and produced technical reports.
• Contributed to hydroelectric, mining and agro-industrial assessments addressing ecological baselines, ecosystem services, land and water pressures, impact pathways, mitigation and restoration.

Independent Environmental Review and Natural-Capital Valuation | 2018–2025

• Reviewed baseline studies, data-collection methods, proposed mitigation measures and monitoring approaches submitted to a specialist task force in connection with a major development project.
• Assessed methodological quality, residual impacts and proposed offset measures; provided recommendations and checked how they were addressed in subsequent submissions.
• Evaluated a PhD thesis comparing the socioeconomic value of conserving a national park with petroleum extraction, examining ecosystem-service valuation and economic trade-offs.