Dirk De Proost

Managing Partner
De Proost Consulting

Dirk De Proost has over twenty years of consulting experience in the transport industry. His career has been dedicated to providing market-led outside-in perspective to major transport companies, equipment providers, shippers and governments worldwide. He has covered all sub sectors and modes in the freight and passenger markets. Dirk's clients include market leaders in each of these fields.

About one third of his work has been in various parts of Asia, one quarter in North America, and over the last decade mostly in Europe where his work has centred on preparing transportation companies for an increasingly Pan-European market and the intensified competition that results.

Dirk has directed initiatives towards a better alignment of operations and commercial efforts, and managed programs to increase sales force effectiveness. He has assisted management teams in negotiating alliances and M&A work in Europe and Asia, and worked for investment banks and other financiers to assess investment opportunities.

Before founding De Proost Consulting at the end of 2003 Dirk was a Director with Mercer Management Consulting, whose Boston office he joined in 1990. He transferred to London in 1993 and then to Frankfurt in 2002.

Prior to joining Mercer, he was based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, as a staff member of the Southeast Asian Agency for Transport and Communications (SEATAC). Between 1984 and 1989 his responsibilities included project management, technical assistance, fundraising and co-ordination with the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank, and various UN agencies.

Prior to joining SEATAC, Dirk executed traineeships at Rohm and Haas in Philadelphia; UBS in Geneva; the Belgian Foreign Trade Office in Brussels and Kuala Lumpur; and Compagnie Générale Maritime in Le Havre.

Dirk holds a BA in applied economics from the Catholic University of Louvain in Belgium and an MBA from Cornell University. He is fluent in English, Dutch, French, and German.