Jan Hugo Isidoor Coene (born in 1957), is a Belgian businessman who fell in disgrace because of the Picanol Scandal. As a young trainee, he joined

Brown, Boveri & Cie Brown, Boveri & Cie. (Brown, Boveri & Company; BBC) was a Swiss group of electrical engineering companies. It was founded in Baden bei Zürich, in 1891 by Charles Eugene Lancelot Brown and Walter Boveri who worked at the Maschinenfabrik Oer ...

(BBC) Workshops in Brussels. In 1988, BBC merged with

ASEA ''Allmänna Svenska Elektriska Aktiebolaget'' ( English translation: General Swedish Electrical Limited Company; Swedish abbreviation: ASEA) was a Swedish industrial company. History ASEA was founded in 1883 by Ludvig Fredholm in Västerås ...

, to become

ABB Asea Brown Boveri ABB Group is a Swedish-Swiss multinational electrical engineering corporation. Incorporated in Switzerland as ABB Ltd., and headquartered in Zurich, it is dual-listed on the Nasdaq Nordic exchange in Stockholm, Sweden, and the SIX Swiss Exch ...

. In 2001 he left ABB and became the CEO & Chairman of

Picanol The Picanol Group is a diversified industrial group in the fields of mechanical engineering, agriculture, food, water management, and other industrial markets. The company is based in Ypres (Belgium), with production plants in Asia and Europe. Pi ...

, a world-wide leader in textile machinery and related services. In 2003, he became Chairman of

Belgacom The Proximus Group is a provider of digital services and communication solutions operating in Belgium and international markets. In Belgium, the company offers its main products and services under the brands Proximus, Scarlet, and Mobile Viki ...

, the Belgian national telephone company which he led to an

IPO An initial public offering (IPO) or stock launch is a public offering in which shares of a company are sold to institutional investors and usually also to retail (individual) investors. An IPO is typically underwritten by one or more investment ...

, working closely with its owner, the Belgian Government. In 2004, the press revealed the level of his incomes from

. These incomes were judged greatly excessive by the press, considering the usual Belgian remunerations for the functions of upper management. The lack of transparency was also pointed out, in particular by company's minority shareholders. Facing growing criticism, Jan Coene was forced to resign from both

and

in October 2004. He accepted to reimburse ten million euros to

(which because of the height of the sums reserved for Jan Coene had become financially unhealthy) but kept 12 million. The affair became a political issue in Belgium and a bill was introduced in Parliament (the "Picanol law") to force big companies to publish the remuneration of their upper management personnel. In the meanwhile, the affair also shed another bad light on the Network of Vlerick-Boys, a circle of business men with low moral standards who all studied at the Vlerick Management School. Members of the circle include Jan Coene, Ronald Everaert, Luc Debruyckere and Louis Verbeke, who were all implied in scandals of greed, mismanagement and fraud (

Lernout & Hauspie Lernout & Hauspie Speech Products (L&H) was a Belgium-based speech recognition technology company, founded by Jo Lernout and Pol Hauspie, that went bankrupt in 2001 because of a fraud engineered by the management. The company was based in Ypres, ...

, , Picanol).Article Series Het Nieuwsblad (in dutch)
/ref> The circle entertains business connections and helps its members to get in the direction committees of Belgian industry. As one of the only remaining "clean managers" Jan Coene was named president of the alumni of the Vlerick Management School. But he also had to quit presidency after the 2004 Picanol scandal. Other of Jan Coene's professional activities include: Director and Board Member of various companies: Domo, Committee Koning Boudewijnstichting, Flanders, Federation of Flemish Enterprises, co-founder of BBE (Belgian Business for Europe), member of the

World Economic Forum The World Economic Forum (WEF) is an international non-governmental organization, international advocacy non-governmental organization and think tank, based in Cologny, Canton of Geneva, Switzerland. It was founded on 24 January 1971 by German ...

(since 2002), Chairman of Siveco Group SA, a company providing

CMMS A computerized maintenance management system (CMMS) is any software package that maintains a computer database of information about an organization's maintenance operations. This information is intended to help maintenance workers do their job ...

products worldwide. Jan Coene is married with 2 children.

Links and references

{{DEFAULTSORT:Coene, Jan Belgian businesspeople Living people 1957 births Vlerick Business School alumni