Frank Van Gool is new CEO of importer federation Febiac

Last Friday, the board of manufacturer and importer federation Febiac appointed Frank Van Gool as its new CEO, replacing Andreas Cremer on the 1st of July.

Frank Van Gool (52) is well-known in the Belgian automotive business. Since 2013, he has been the managing director of Renta, the Belgian Federation of Vehicle Rental Companies, and in 2021, he also became the MD of Mobia, the umbrella organization of sector federations Febiac, Traxio, and Renta.

“Through my position at the head of Mobia, I already know Febiac quite well,” explains Van Gool. “I’m glad that I can defend the interests of the entire automobile sector in Belgium and Luxembourg from now on. We have one of the youngest and most sustainable car fleets in Europe and we want to keep it like that.”

“That’s where Febiac plays an important role. If we want individual mobility to be available for everyone, that’s also a real challenge. And, of course, we will also do our utmost best to see that the change to emission-poor mobility is also realistic for two-wheelers, vans, and trucks,” he adds.

Dire times

Febiac is facing difficult times. In 2024, the Brussels Motor Show disappeared, causing the federation to lose its biggest source of income. The federation must adapt by reorganizing its structure and devising new ways to stay afloat.

“I’m convinced that Frank Van Gool is the right person to lead Febiac, a federation that is more than 100 years old,” says Freddy De Mulder, Febiac’s president who took over from Philippe Dehennin last year. “With his solid experience and his earlier cooperation with our teams, Frank is perfectly aware of the strengths of Febiac and of the challenges the federation is facing.”

His predecessor, Andreas Cremer, has announced that he will be pursuing other professional challenges in the near future. He has been CEO of Febiac for the last 4 years, a very turbulent period, with the pandemic in 2020 and the turmoil it caused throughout the industry. In 2023, he relaunched a revised version of the Brussels Motor Show, but this year the BMS was canceled and replaced by an Automotive eMotion Summit for professionals in February.