Sports Angels to help talents become champions
Sports Angels are sports enthusiasts who aim to support Hopiness and young talents who do not have the means to finance their high-level sports ambitions either personally and/or via their company.
Carl Mestdagh
A sports enthusiast and company manager to the core, Carl Mestdagh was the brains behind the Hopiness project. This entrepreneur born in 1966 was looking to invest in civic-minded initiatives requiring citizen responsibility and involvement. Active in a number of fields, Carl Mestdagh is managing director of Equilis SA and currently chairman of the Board at Mestdagh SA, Ascencio SCA and Valois. He is also managing director of companies with various corporate purposes.
Jean-Marc Heynderickx
Jean-Marc Heynderickx serves as the Chief Executive Officer at Nextgen group. He spent his career in the Louis Delhaize Group and was Chief Executive Officer from 1995 to 2010. He was also chairman of subsidiary holding companies in France, Luxemburg and in The Netherlands. From 2000 to 2005, he was a member of the board of Comeos (Fedis), the national retail organisation and of the Charleroi Chamber of Commerce. He currently serves as a member of the board of FRI (First Retail International), a Belgian Investment fund specialising in Retail Warehousing, Medi-Market, Belgenext, Celyad, Stanley & Stella, and Claris Clinic. He is also the co-founder of the Food Bank in Hungary. Jean-Marc is an avid skier and an enthusiastic runner, having participated in several marathons and trails. Hence he specifically supports through Hopiness the young alpine skier, Armand Marchant.
Philippe de Moerloose
Graduating from the ICHEC Brussels Management School in 1991, Philippe de Moerloose founded the DEMIMPEX company that same year, with the ambition of making this organisation one of the leaders of Pan-African distribution.
Today he is the head of the SDA-SDAI consortium, an acknowledged expert in the distribution, throughout the African continent, of automotive brands (Ford, Mitsubishi, Nissan, Mercedes-Benz, Hyundai, and Volkswagen), equipment and agricultural tractors (John Deere Construction & Forestry, Hitachi Construction Machinery,…) and the establishment of integrated Pan-African networks.
Philippe de Moerloose is passionate about tennis. He is also the owner of TC Bercuit and has organised an ATP Challenger tournament there, allowing the best Belgians to play in front of their audience.
