Executive Director4Wings Foundation
Virginie Samyn has a master degree in Business Administration and Communication and 15 years of experience in the world of social entrepreneurship, and this in a wide range of roles.
She began her career working in one of the largest Belgian social enterprises, Les Petits Riens asbl., as assistant director of the textile network, and ended as communications director.
After five exciting years she was called to restructure and become director of a medium-sized company employing 35 people and active in the fair-trade sector in Europe, Asia and Africa.
Having reshaped the company and set it on course for renewed success, she accepted another mission, to develop the Belgian office of Ashoka, the largest international network supporting Social Entrepreneurship. After having comfortably developed the Belgian activities, and secured a budget for the coming years, she then left to pursue a new adventure: the launch of the 4Wings Foundation, a family based structure set up to combat precarity with a strong focus on social entrepreneurship as a part of the solution.
Virginie likes to launch projects that bring creative solutions and build cross sector bridges : such as Second Hand fashion show and design expo of the Petits Riens, new production lines in Vietnam and sales channels in Japan, the Scale up and Changemaker schools program at Ashoka…and moreover she has been fascinated by the change making power everyone can activate from a young age and that can be even more powerful and financially rentable as it fosters co-creation.