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 healthcare & the environment over virtual worlds and their business impact.

From 2005 onwards he held a European coordination role for IBM’s 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 his own social media agency called Blackline. The agency helps clients implement and use social media like blogs, wikis, podcasting, videocasting, RSS feeds etc.. 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) and is a member of the Belgian PR Center.

He speaks English, French and Dutch and could be fluent again in Spanish on short notice. You can find his public client references on http://www.ikarma.com/user/nelson and see a list of his speaking engagements on: http://tinyurl.com/22b3no