Alain De Taeye, born in Belgium, graduated as engineer-architect from the University of Gent. After having done research work in the field of Operations Research at the Business School of the Gent University, he founded Informatics & Management Consultants (I&M) where, next to IT consultancy, he continued his work on digital map databases and routing. In 1989 I&M was integrated into the Dutch Tele Atlas group and as of 1990 Alain headed the Tele Atlas group. During this period, he successfully introduced Tele Atlas on both the Frankfurt and the Amsterdam Stock Exchanges. In 2008 Tele Atlas was acquired by TomTom and Alain joined the Management Board of the TomTom group.