Draft:Christophe Leclercq (entrepreneur)

Christophe Leclercq (born 31 Augusr 1962) is an entrepreneur, innovation expert, sector consolidation, governance and communication. After first having a career in strategy consulting and competition policy, he then founded the EURACTIV Media Network. He is now chairman of the think-do-tank Europe MediaLab (Stars4media) and is an advisor for several businesses and policy boards.

Biography
Born in 1962, in Bar-le-Duc, he studied at Sciences Po and graduated at HEC Paris in 1985. His first job was in 1985 as market research manager for Renault Deutschland, he then ventured in human resources, in Cologne in 1987 and in Brussels in 1988: the EuroManagers job fair (transformed into EMDS - EuroManagers Development Services - later integrated into the Vivendi media group). This built on his being in the student organisation AEGEE-Europe. This cross-border NGO advocated for a small pilot project voted by the European Parliament to eventually become the well known ERASMUS programme.

During the years 1987 to 1995, he joined the McKinsey consulting company and worked in Paris, Brussels and then Moscow. His job was to advise companies from several sectors on how to restructure and capture the European market.

In 1995 he became a European Commission official working in the Directorate General for competition as coordinator for Information Society.

In 1999, he then left the European Commission to create the EURACTIV. This media was originally a UK Public Limited Company with their main offices in Brussels. It then grew into a media network in Central Europe, under the initial name CrossLingual, before the 2004 EU enlargement. This later turned into the EURACTIV network of affiliates and media partners, reporting on EU policies in 13 countries each in their own language. Following Brexit, the main company moved to the continent and became EURACTIV Media Network BV. He occupied the following roles in the media company; CEO, publisher, network director, board member and sits now on its Advisory Council.

In 2018, he became an advisor on the Final report of the High Level Expert Group on Fake News and Online Disinformation organised by the European Commission. He was then nominated as a member of the Advisory Council by the European Digital Media Observatory (EDMO) and was consulted as an expert for the 2019 European Commission report on an industrial media strategy. He often writes opinion articles, occasionally co-signed with members of the European Parliament and stakeholders, on the media sector, EU enlargement, EU Communication, and multingualism.

His latest project is to volunteer his home for hosting eastern European journalists with the aim of allowing them to have better access to the European news in the capital of European Union.

Private life
Leclercq is married to Sharon Spooner, an expert in trade policy and European affairs who is active in business and civil society organisations in both Brussels and the UK. She is also an anti-Brexit activist. They have three children.