Coen joined Idea Consult’s “Innovation, Competitiveness & Sustainability” team as Expert per January 2024. Within IDEA he is active in the services offered by S3CoP on Governance, Funding and Demonstration, Impact studies, Interregional benchmarks, an I-3 Strand 1 project on 3DoP and the submission of several new I-3 proposals.

After his study “Commercial Economy” at The Hague University of Applied Sciences, Coen completed his economic and management education at Vlerick Business School in Ghent.

Since 1990 Coen has been working for several international companies as a commercial director.

In 2007 he started advising and training organizations in their transitions from strategy to operations. Since then, he coached over 300 engineers and managers, more than 40 organizations, not only on building a strategy, but also on developing the skills to manage and execute that strategy.

Before joining IDEA, Coen has been Project Manager for Interregional Innovation and Project Manager of the Vanguard Initiative – both for the Dutch province of Noord-Brabant during 8 years. The Vanguard Initiative provides a platform for regions, companies, clusters, and knowledge institutions in Europe to meet and find new innovative solutions together. Coen specializes in innovation and strategy in the high-tech sector and energy sector in Europe. One of his main specialisms is connecting people, organizations, and regions. He has been involved in the E.E.R., PRI, Manunet, and the I-3 instrument and has multi years’ experience in Interreg projects, Horizon projects and cascade funding.

As the Project Leader for the North-Brabant “Innovation Coalition “Energy Conversion and Storage”, Coen bridges the gap between the challenges in the Energy Transition and technical solutions from Research Institutes, Start-up’s, Scale-ups, and companies by connecting them, also in an international context.

Coen is fluent in the languages English, Dutch and German.