When the very first version of Microsoft Excel came on the market in 1985 (designed for Macintosh, by the way), I had the early opportunity to get to know that program well as part of my university degree studies as a Master of Science of Engineering.
As a user from the very first hour, I then followed and used the upgrades of Excel closely. This made it easier for me to build up a detailed insight into what Excel can (or sometimes cannot) do.
Moreover, since I already had extensive programming experience, I started programming "own" applications with the built-in Macro functions (later the Visual Basic for Applications), and have thus been able to gain a lot of experience in optimising and automating of specific tasks that were not part of Excel's default functionalities.
From the start of my 30 years of professional experience in a major US petroleum company, it became apparent that that early experience (with both Excel and the Macintosh graphical user interface) gave me an edge over most of my colleagues, who initially only used variants of MSDOS and Lotus. -123 knew.
It didn't take long before I became the first-line contact for my colleagues when issues related to the operation of their PC or the software presented themselves, and only when I couldn't provide the solution myself did we get the IT department involved.
That role was quickly extended to all things MS Office, as well as the SAP systems in use in the organisation and various other computer issues.
After all, most of today's users of Excel started working with that program relatively late, and to start from scratch right now and master it without outside help is quite a challenge.
Instead of addressing user problems from the point of view of the typical IT-expert, I'm looking at them from the user's point of view. This can make a significant difference for the user.
When the need to reorient my career arose (due to significant organisation restructuring at my then employer), I decided to start pi-ProductivITy ...
See below for more details about my experiences and career.
Family
Name : Philip Planchenault
Date of Birth : 10 September 1966
Born in : Heist-op-den-Berg (Belgium)
Family Status : Happily married with 5 children (and 2 grandchildren)
Lives at : Westerlo (Belgium)
Hobbies :
Skills
Languages :
IT :
Professional :
Education - Training
Elementary School :
1972 until 1978 Rijkslagere school Lüdenscheid (BSD - Belgian garrison in Germany)
Secondary School :
University :
Remote education
Career before ExxonMobil
Aug-89 – Dec-89 :
Assistant at the faculty of Applied Sciences (VUB - department General Electricity)
Jan-90 – Jan-91 :
Military service (reserve officer in tank regiment - Leopard I)
Career at ExxonMobil
Feb-91 – Apr-93 :
Apr-93 – Nov-95 :
Nov-95 – Dec-98 :
Operations supervisor console 3 (day shift), Refinery Antwerpen
Dec-98 – Mar-02 :
BNL Maintenance co-ordinator, Retail Engineering, Breda
Sep-00 – Jul-01 :
Prevention Advisor Marketing, Distribution and Administration for Esso Belgium (50%)
Apr-02 – Nov-03 :
Asset Management Staff Engineer, Fuels Marketing Europe, Brussels
Dec-03 – Mar-04 :
Asset Management Investment/Information Analyst, Fuels Marketing Europe, Brussels
Mar-04 – Dec-06 :
Asset Management Europe Controls Advisor, Fuels Marketing Europe, Brussels
Jan-07 – Sep-09 :
Asset Management Europe Controls Advisor, Fuels Marketing Europe/Africa, Brussels (Home based as of August 2008)
Oct-09 – Apr-10 :
Asset Management Global Lease Advisor, combined with Real Estate Manager France (Home based)
May-10 – May-13 :
BNL Retail Environmental Portfolio Manager (Home based)
Jun-13 - Oct-18 :
BNL Environmental Portfolio Manager including non-Retail (Home based)
Nov-18 - Jun-19 :
Team Lead for BNL Environmental Project Managers – Team Lead for EAME Back-Office, Brussels
Jul-19 - Jun-21 :
EAME Back-Office Team Lead – Operations Effectiveness Advisor EAME/AP, Brussels
30-Jun-21
Separation following corporate decision for collective dismissal (Act Renault)
Career after ExxonMobil
1st of July, 2021 : start-up of a business as self-employed consultant (pi-ProductivITy)
7th of April, 2022 : transformation of self-employed business to limited liability company (under Belgian law) (pi-ProductivITy)
12th of May, 2022 until October 28th, 2022 : freelance Teacher Excel at the Centrum voor Avondonderwijs (part-time)
29th of November, 2022 : freelance Digital Coach / Consultant at XYLOS
23rd of January, 2024 : commercial agent for Syfco
pi-ProductivITy BV
Gevaertlaan 177
2260 Westerlo
(Belgium)
CBE
VAT
IBAN
BIC
0784.487.302, RPR Antwerpen - afdeling Turnhout
BE 0784.487.302
BE74 0689 4476 8307
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