Philippe Borremans 109 connections

Philippe Borremans holds a Public Relations degree from the INIREP, (Institut International des Relations Publiques) and started his business communications career at Porter Novelli International, a global public relations firm in 1995.

During his 4 year stay as a Public Relations Consultant he worked for organizations like Federal Express, Iomega, Monsanto and the Association of Plastic Manufacturers in Europe. While at Porter Novelli he managed national and international public relations programs ranging from pure media relations to EC related influencer programs on a European level.

In 1997 he started to specialize in crisis communications and in - what was then called - “online PR”. His crisis communications experience covers union strikes, an airplane crash, a flame site and product recalls. During 1998 he worked in the offices of the agency in Boston for some time to gain experience in the latest web developments and how these were applied to traditional public relations. Since then, applying the web and related technologies as communications and collaboration tools has been one of his favorite activities.

In October 1999 – just in time for Y2K - he was asked to join IBM Belgium in the function of Public
Relations Manager for the IBM Global Services business unit. After one year he was asked to hold the responsibility for all external communications of all IBM business units in Belgium & Luxembourg. During the next 4 years he managed media relations and influencer programs for the company around a multitude of subjects ranging from innovation, diversity to health care & the environment over virtual worlds and their business impact.

From 2005 onwards he held a European coordination role for IBMʼs online communications activities and the use of social media in the context of public relations. He managed a virtual team of 7 colleagues across Europe and became one of IBM's “evangelists”, often speaking at international conferences and C-level client meetings.

Next to IBM Philippe started his own training & consulting company in 2005. In this capacity he coached PR and marketing professionals on the use of social media & provided media training for business executives.

In January 2008 Philippe took a leave from IBM and created Blackline, a social media agency together with Leads United, a leading Belgian Public Relations company. The agency helps clients implement and use social media like blogs, wikis, podcasting, videocasting, RSS feeds etc..

In January 2009 Philippe decided to go back to IBM part time and continues to give hands on workshops for communications & marketing professionals on the use of social media in the context of internal, external and crisis communications.

Philippe is a founding member & member of the board of the International Association of Online Communicators, a full member of the European Association of Communications Directors (where he leads the new media work group).

Philippe speaks English, French and Dutch. He is an avid Blogger and comments on social media, society, history and anything in between on http://www.conversationblog.com.

He is invited on a regular basis to speak at industry conferences across Europe. Some of his speaking engagements on the topic of social media:

• Business Forum International - London (UK) - Pros en cons of employee blogging.
• Prague Security Studies Institute Summit - Prague (Czech Republic) - Social Media & Information Sharing.
• Les Blogs - Paris (France) - How is blogging affecting corporations.
• Online Information Conference - London (UK) - Corporate Blogging.
• From Vision To Solutions Conference - Pärnu (Estonia) - Virtual Worlds for business applications.
• HyperThinker @ the British Chamber of Commerce - Brussels (Belgium) - Enterprise 2.0.
• Euroblog 2007/8 - Gent/Brussels (Belgium) - Social Media & PR.
• The Social Media Forum for Internal Communicators - London (UK) - Internal use of Social Media.
• European Association of Communications Directors Summit - Brussels (Belgium) - Web2.0 & PR.