Paul Ploumhans
Founder, Arvestria · Brussels
I work with senior executives and their teams to make their business transformations deliver. That means designing the transformation program, putting in place the mechanisms to secure its execution, building the governance to keep it honest, and staying through execution until the business benefits are in the numbers.
EDUCATION · PhD · IMD MBA · MSc Engineering
PRIOR EXPERIENCE · BCG Brussels · Free Field Technologies
BASED IN · Brussels, Belgium
BACKGROUND
The combination that matters
Most transformation advisors come from one of two directions: strategy consulting, or operational management. I've worked in both.
My consulting background started at BCG in Brussels, working on strategy and transformation engagements across logistics, transport, and energy. That gave me a methodology and an analytical standard that I've used ever since.
What BCG didn't provide, and what line experience did, was a close understanding of what actually happens when a transformation program meets an organization. The politics, the resistance, the ways that well-designed programs quietly stop delivering. That understanding shapes how I structure engagements today.
Before consulting, I spent several years in product management and technical roles in the engineering software industry, which is where I developed the habit of building things that work, not just describing things that should.
CREDENTIALS
Education and experience
Education
PhD in Applied Sciences — University of Louvain
MSc, Mechanical Engineering — University of Louvain
MBA — IMD, Lausanne
Professional experience
Independent consulting — 2010 to present
Entrepreneurial venture (software + quantitative trading) — 2009–2018
The Boston Consulting Group, Brussels — 2007–2008
Free Field Technologies — 2001–2005
University of Louvain — 1996-2001
Geographic coverage
Europe, with a focus on Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, France and Switzerland.
Working languages: English, French, Italian, Dutch
Why a boutique
Large consulting firms are well suited to large transformations. They have the staffing capacity, the proprietary platforms, and the institutional credibility that very large programs require.
Arvestria is built for something different: senior-led, co-owned engagements where the person running the analysis is the same person sitting in the steering committee. No rotation of junior analysts. No account managers between the client and the work.
This is a deliberate choice, not a constraint. The executives I work with are not buying a firm, they are working with a person.
Want to see if there is a fit?
A short conversation is usually enough to find out.