Gerdi Staelens

Gerdi Staelens (born 1963) is a Belgian businessman. Together with Jan Vandenbosch, he founded the Belgian software company Winking, where he is Chief Executive Officer. He is the son of Jozef Staelens. Together with his wife he has two children: Joke and Wouter. His son Wouter Staelens is also employed in his company.

He is responsible for Winkin' 1.0, the first administrative software package in Belgium running on Windows 3.0, presented at the Bureau '91 fair (18-25 September 1991). In May 1992 a version for Windows 3.1x was presented with the presence of Microsoft. He is also the creator of Print&Share.

From January 2000 till December 2002, he was chairman at B.A.S.A. (Belgian Accounting Software Association), a branch organisation of independent software vendors of financial software.

In 2008 as CEO of Winking he was part of an economic business trip to Seattle and Vancouver devised by the Agency for foreign trade in close cooperation with Flanders Investment and Trade, Awax and Brussels Export together with HRH Prince Philippe of Belgium, Duke of Brabant.

He is also vice-president at Spaenhiers vzw, an archaeological historical society.

In 2010 he was awarded for "Krak van het jaar" (= special person of the year) in Koekelare by the newspaper Krant van West-Vlaanderen. He also won "De Bronzen Stekker" culture award in 2014 for his work on the Lange Max Museum.