Roel Pieper

Roland "Roel" Pieper (born 1956) is a Dutch IT-entrepreneur.

Early life and education

Pieper was born in Vlaardingen, son of an engineer at a car manufacturer. His father died when Pieper was 20, and on his 18th birthday he suffered a motoring accident which destroyed his sporting career as a player of the Juventus Schiedam basketball team. According to Pieper, both of these experiences instilled him with a certain toughness. Pieper obtained his MSc Engineer's degree from the Delft University of Technology, 1980, in informatics.

Career in the USA

After graduation, he worked for ten years for Software AG (both in Germany and in the United States). In the United States he worked for Unix System Laboratories of AT&T. In 1993, after the resignation of co-founder Ralph Ungermann, Roel became the president of Ungermann-Bass. Ungermann was tied to Tandem by an earlier White Knight deal and Ungermann resigned after his required term. Roel renamed the company UB Networks while it was a subsidiary of Tandem Computers. Roel restructured UB Networks research investments into ATM technology, which was popular at the time, instead of continuing Ralph Ungermann's earlier successful investments and leadership in Ethernet technology. Ungermann-Bass developed the first Virtual Network Architecture (VNA) in 1993, which was subsequently sold by Roel to Cisco. Cisco evolved Ethernet LAN based VNA into internet IP based VPNs. UB Networks ATM technology was sold to Newbridge Networks successfully in 1996 after Pieper joined Tandem Computers as CEO. In 1995 Pieper became president and CEO of Tandem Computers where he was instrumental in repositioning the company. Under Pieper's leadership Tandem was sold to Compaq in 1997, and Pieper became a member of the executive board of Compaq. During his time in the US, Pieper gained a reputation as a successful restructurer. Under Pieper's leadership, USL, UB and Tandem Computer were successfully restructured and sold to strategic players in the industry.

Career in the Netherlands

Pieper returned to the Netherlands in 1998. For one year he was board member of the Dutch electronics giant Philips by invitation of Cor Boonstra, then Philips' president. This involvement ended abruptly in May 1999 when Pieper got involved in the claimed coding technology of Jan Sloot, a connection Pieper made on behalf of Philips. Philips officially decided not to use the technology. Pieper then decided to support the invention as a private investor and later also as board member. The inventor died of a heart attack shortly after he demonstrated his technology to a group of 20 investors and technology companies in the summer of 1999. After one year, Pieper ended his employment at Philips with a severance package of undisclosed value.

In 1998, together with ex-minister of economy Hans Wijers, Pieper set up Twinning, an incubator for starting entrepreneurs, particularly in the IT and especially the Internet sector. The project received ninety Million Guilders of government subsidy, and as the Dot-com bubble burst, the ministry decided to sell Twinning to a group of private investors. Of the fifty companies that Twinning started, more than 35 are still operating and some very successfully.

Pieper also independently took part in other IT businesses, including BitMagic of Michiel Frackers and Francisco van Jole. By 1 September 1999 Pieper was appointed as a professor of Electronic Commerce, a newly created chair at the faculty of informatics and technology management of the University of Twente.

At the end of 1999, Pieper founded Insight Capital Partners Europe, a private investment society for IT-businesses, now operating under the name of Favonius Ventures, particularly in the field of e-commerce. In November 2000 he became Chairman of the Board of Lernout & Hauspie, a Flemish company specializing in speech recognition technology. Pieper was instrumental in uncovering a financial scandal at this company, which took place in the period 1996-1999, before he joined the company. In cooperation with the Belgian authorities, Pieper helped to secure information that ultimately led to the formal charging of the founders Jo Lernout and Pol Hauspie. Pieper left as Chairman of the board after the shareholders decided to appoint a new CEO.

In 2001, Pieper entered into the board of advisors of Nearshore IT services company, Levi9 Global Sourcing and conducted a study requested by minister Tineke Netelenbos for setting up a system for road pricing, called Mobimiles. Later that year he became president of Connekt, an organisation for addressing road tolling issues in the Netherlands.

Eclipse Aviation

In 2003, Pieper started a new venture involving Very Light Jets (VLJ), in cooperation with Albuquerque, New Mexico-based Eclipse Aviation Corporation.

In 2003 Pieper together with a Russian businessman Daniel Bolotin started the joint venture investment business creating a Luxembourg-based company, called European Technology and Investment Research Center (or ETIRC). The main project of ETIRC was ETIRC Aviation, sought to establish an Air Taxi network for Europe, Turkey and Russia and a second manufacturing location for the Eclipse 500 jet in Russia for the European market. In July, 2008, ETIRC Aviation, which by then had become Eclipse Aviation's largest shareholder, ousted Eclipse Aviation founder Vern Raburn from his position as CEO, and Pieper took over the job of acting CEO for Eclipse Corporation.

In the autumn of 2008, several Eclipse customers sued Eclipse for the return of their deposits, claiming they had waited years for the delivery of their Eclipse 500 jets. In November, the company declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy, with the stated plan that a new company, headed by Pieper, would buy the assets of Eclipse and continue manufacturing. Pieper attempted to secure the necessary funds for this acquisition, but was unsuccessful. This was mainly due to the economic downturn, which led to several potential investors bowing out at the last moment. Eclipse Aviation ran out of money in mid-February 2009 and ceased operations and laid off its remaining 850 employees. On February 25, a group of creditors petitioned the Delaware bankruptcy court to convert Eclipse's bankruptcy to Chapter 7 liquidation. Soon thereafter the board of directors (including Pieper) acknowledged the company had no other options but Chapter 7, effectively ending the company's 10-year run, during which it spent an estimated $2 billion in investments and loans. Various reports following the Chapter 7 filing of the company insinuated financial problems for Pieper as a result of the Eclipse failure. However, none of these reports were found to be based on any evidence or facts.

On 7 April 2009 ETIRC BV in the Netherlands declared bankruptcy. The Dutch newspaper de Volkskrant reported that Pieper had invested US$146 million in Eclipse through ETIRC.

This investment was done with non-collateral US$150 million credit of Russian "Sviaz-bank". The Russian newspaper Vedomosti reported that this credit became later an object of criminal investigation .

At the same time he was fighting to save Eclipse Pieper was investing tens of millions of dollars in a Russian technology to extract diesel fuel from coal. That project enabled him to attract Russian interest in Eclipse. The Liquid to Coal project is on hold and will restart when oil prices have reached prices again above 100 dollars per barrel.

A venture capital investor is expected to have some of its investments fail. Recent failures include a magazine, Opinio, much older projects such as a web site, Tradingcars.com, and the telecommunications company Stonehenge. Efforts to start MyGuide, a company specializing in GPS navigation units and meant to compete with, also failed die to the economic crisis and the resulting lack of investors willing to provide financing.

Personal life

In May 2003, Pieper was involved in an incident in which a confused man broke into his house in Aerdenhout, and stabbed his wife who fortunately made a full recovery. Pieper is married and has six children. In the summer of 2007, Pieper became one of the major owners of the MyGuide Amsterdam Basketball Club and is working with the city of Amsterdam on a new youth project in cooperation with the school network Amarantis.

The man who stabbed Pieper's wife was convicted and sentenced to compulsory psychiatric treatment in a closed judicial institute (Terbeschikkingstelling in the Dutch language). He then was granted a temporary leave in 2007. Pieper emigrated to France in 2008. One of the stated reasons being that he was not informed, or was informed far too late, by the police or Ministry of Justice of this temporary leave.

External links

• Bio from University of Twente
• Onbescheiden durfkapitalist, article from De Groene Amsterdammer