About us
Whyte is your best choice.
We are the most awarded, independent, and multidisciplinary communication agency in Belgium.
HOW WE WORK
Our approach
Whyte works for you to create customized solutions, starting from your ambition, your specific stakeholders and your internal operations. Based on our insights into the landscape of politics, media and business, and with a feel for the latest social, academic and academic trends. With advice on the most powerful core messages, via the smartest communication channels, aimed at the right target groups.
Focused on your goals, taking into account the stakeholder landscape.
HOW WE WORK
Our DNA
PROACTIVE. CARING. RELEVANT. OPEN-MINDED.
COMMUNICATION IS ALL ABOUT PEOPLE
Our Team
We are a team of over 40 consultants with diverse backgrounds and experiences, all sharing a passion for corporate communications and public affairs. We work in teams tailored to each client, always going "the extra mile". Our multilingualism, our broad sector experience and our extensive network are our key strengths. 'Working together' and 'sharing' are ingrained in our DNA as a team. Our open corporate culture is one of our absolute strengths.
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YEARS OF EXPERIENCE AND INSIGHTS
The Management
Founder & Partner
Sandrine Agie
Sandrine, also a "founding mother" of Whyte, has more than 20 years of experience in the communications industry.
With her legal background, she is the expert on regulatory affairs and licensing at Whyte. She often combines public affairs with corporate communication and crisis communication in her assignments. Sandrine is a director at the Brussels employers' association BECI and AmCham, and teaches Strategic Communication at the Université Catholique de Louvain.
Founder & Partner
Joris Bulteel
Joris is a public affairs expert who began his career with sector associations in Brussels, London and Washington DC.
Before co-founding Whyte Corporate Affairs, he was a Director at Interel, where he was responsible for Belgian public affairs. He has specific experience in thematic lobbying and crisis communication projects. Joris works for both companies and sector associations. He offers strategic advice and a sounding board but is also active in representation, negotiation and mediation. A supporter of the 'new school' approach to public affairs, he firmly believes that these disciplines can provide an efficient and effective response to business-critical issues. He studied political science (University of Antwerp) and obtained an MBA in general management (Vlerick Business School). Among other things, Joris is co-founder and board member of Bepact and vice president of the Amcham Antwerp Chapter, and is an active networker in business, politics and the cultural world. He regularly lectures on crisis communication, public affairs and the Belgian political and stakeholder landscape at, among others, the University of Antwerp, Vlerick Business School and the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (Diplomatic Academy).
Founder & Partner
Eveline De Ridder
Eveline is co-founder of Whyte and has 20 years of experience as a communications professional.
Her experience is situated from corporate positioning and awareness campaigns to crisis and issues management. She has a soft spots for the food and health sectors. Eveline is a guest lecturer in crisis communications and social media. She also recently wrote a book on crisis communications, 'Communicating When It's Burning (Not Yet)'.
Founder & Partner
Emmanuel Goedseels
Emmanuel started his career as a journalist, including at Le Soir. In 2008, he was one of the founders of Whyte Corporate Affairs.
He specializes in change management, crisis communications and financial communications. Emmanuel has made reputation management one of the growth engines of Whyte services. He is a visiting professor of Strategic Communication at the Université Catholique de Louvain.
Partner
Isabelle Hardy
A consultant at heart, Isabelle joined Whyte Corporate Affairs in 2017. She previously worked for more than 22 years at the communications consultancy akkanto of which she laid the foundations in 1995. She started her career at Weber-Shandwick in 1986.
In recent years, Isabelle has advised many international and Belgian listed companies on crisis communication and issues management. She has also guided the communication of dozens of companies during restructurings and collective redundancies. Given her experience in change management, Isabelle has often been asked to manage the communication departments of large companies "in-house". She is also often invited as a guest speaker in crisis communication and media relations at KULeuven, IHECS, and Ugent. Facilitating workshops is what Isabelle does best. Media training sessions, personal coaching and presentation skills training are constantly on her agenda. She also lends her voice to the Y-files, the Whyte Corporate Affairs podcasts that she regularly hosts, sharing communication tips on various current topics. Isabelle is fluent in Dutch, French, English, German and Spanish.
Partner
Philip Naert
After earning a master's degree in Law (Catholic University of Leuven), Philip Naert started his career as a legal advisor before going to work in 2008 as an advisor to the then Minister of Enterprise and Simplification.
Philip was involved in a number of projects related to administrative simplification and followed up files concerning pharmaceuticals, chemicals and the automotive sector. From 2010, Philip explored the other side of the policy process at sector federation FEBIAC, where he became Manager Public Affairs in order to represent the federation's interests, both at the political level and among the various stakeholders.
Director
Joost Germis
Joost has 25 years of experience at the intersection of politics and business. Before joining Whyte's team, Joost worked for about half of his career at the Flemish employers' association VEV/Voka, as a substantive adviser on economics and mobility and then advanced to become a member of the management team.
The other half of his career he worked at various Flemish cabinets as counselor and deputy chief of cabinet. For the City of Antwerp, he was recently Head of Cabinet of the Alderman responsible for, among other things, economy and public domain. Joost has a strong feeling for the complexity but also the possibilities of political and administrative environments and always works from a solution-oriented approach with a strong empathy for vision and strategy.
Associate Director
Freek Bracke
Freek Bracke started his career at sector colleague akkanto. Having started 4 years in public affairs, he further specializes and advises companies and organisations in the field of corporate communication, crisis communication and media relations.
After a series of long-term in-house assignments at, for among others, bpost and Janssen Pharmaceutica, Freek started working as ‘corporate communications manager’ at Unilever Belgium in 2013. He was responsible for both employee engagement and all corporate communications. 2 years later, he also took on the role of spokesperson for Unilever NV, the former head office in The Netherlands, contributing to a stronger positioning of the company and its senior management in the Benelux. Freek joined Whyte Corporate Affairs in September 2020. Based on a multi-stakeholder approach, he focusses among others on corporate communications assignments, media trainings and media relations. Freek is fluent in Dutch, French and English.
Associate Director
Florence Jaspart
Florence Jaspart began her career as an assistant in the Strategy department at the Louvain School of Management, where she taught strategic change management.
As a member of the team within the KBL Chair at the same time, for four years she worked on issues involving the dissemination of change and the effectiveness of internal communication in highly uncertain situations (takeover, restructuring, new shareholder, etc.). Backed up by this experience, Florence then moved from theory to practice, working for one year as head of internal communication for all the UCL sites. Having joined the Whyte agency during the summer of 2014, Florence focuses in particular on employee communication both in situation of crisis than during company transformations (takeovers, mergers, company acquisitions, new corporate strategy, restructuring plan, new CEO, NWOW-New Ways of Working, company relocation, union-management relationships, etc.) Florence works both on strategic level giving support to top management teams within the definition of their communication strategy than on operational level with teams on the field.
Associate Director
Sylvie Lillywhite
French by birth and granddaughter of a British man, Sylvie heads Whyte's graphic design studio - StudioTokyo. In this capacity, she participates in the agency's many creative missions in the field of visual storytelling and information design.
Sylvie focuses her expertise on assisting companies and institutions that want to (re)give life to, form and impact to their communication, through various visual stories and graphic creations. As a graduate in Advertising Communication from Ihecs and an expert in storytelling, Sylvie easily combines her creative ideas, her storytelling skills and her sense of organization to translate reality into powerful and visually appealing stories. Sylvie is fluent in French and English, with a good knowledge of Dutch.
Associate Director
Ischa Lambrechts
Ischa started his career in 2012 as a political advisor for the Brussels Cabinet of Mobility and Public Works, where he was responsible for, among other things, the stakeholder management of the Brussels economic actors.
Ischa continued his career in 2017 at the Brussels employers' association, BECI, where he started as an advisor at the knowledge center and progressed to Strategy & Innovation manager. In this role, he was co-responsible for the vision and strategy development of BECI and acted as spokesperson. As a member of the Brussels Economic and Social Council, and other advisory councils, he gained extensive experience in government relations and negotiations with social partners.
Ischa joined Whyte in August 2021, where he specializes in public affairs. Ischa has a Master's degree in Political Science (VUB) and a Postgraduate in Business Development.
He is fluent in Dutch, French and English.
THE TROPHY CABINET
Our Awards
Meet the family
Over the years, we have expanded our services to include PR campaigns and design services. Our talented teams at Twyst and StudioTokyo help take your communications to the next level.
STRATEGIC DESIGN AND STORYTELLING AGENCY
Our strategists, designers and creatives create the brands of the future and guard the future of our brands.
BRAND PUBLIC RELATIONS AGENCY
Our consultants, creatives and marketers create, monitor and distribute your stories and news
