Jambon appoints Joy Donné, his former chief of staff, as new CEO of Flanders Investment & Trade | Inland

According to the core cabinet of the Flemish government, Donné came out of the final selection procedure with four people as the best candidate. Donné succeeds Claire Tillekaerts at FIT, who will retire at the end of June.

After a long career at FIT, of which the past ten years as managing director, Claire Tillekaerts will soon say goodbye to the Flemish Agency for International Business. Tillekaerts turned 65 in February and is retiring. According to the FIT, “Claire Tillekaerts undertakes to ensure that the transfer runs smoothly”.

The Flemish government has been looking for a suitable successor for some time now. After an independent and extensive selection procedure, five suitable candidates remained, one of whom withdrew his candidacy. Joy Donné was eventually selected from the four remaining candidates.

Donné, 47, has three masters degrees (Law, Economic and Business Law and Finance) and started out as a lawyer at Stibbe’s office.

In politics, Donné first worked in a number of liberal cabinets. He worked for Patrick Dewael, Annemie Turtelboom and Didier Reynders, among others. In 2014, Donné transferred to the N-VA, where he started working as head of cabinet of the then Minister of the Interior Jan Jambon. In the elections in 2019, Donné ended up as the first successor on the Limburg Chamber list in the House.

Donné also became known to the general public through the so-called ‘Porsche incident’ during the government negotiations in 2014. Donné came to pick up N-VA chairman Bart De Wever in a Porsche, plucked a parking fine from behind his back in front of the cameras. windshield wiper and threw it to the ground. In addition, the car had two different number plates, as a result of which a woman from Houthalen-Helchteren was fined.