Yvan Verougstraete
| Yvan Verougstraete | |
|---|---|
| Born | 6 October 1975 Ixelles, Belgium |
| Nationality | Belgian |
| Education | Université catholique de Louvain (law degree, 1997); Vlerick Business School (Master's in Business Administration) |
| Occupation | Business executive, politician |
| Employer | Medi-Market (2014 to 2021); Prego! (from 2023) |
| Title | Founder and former chief executive; President, Les Engagés |
| Known for | Founding Medi-Market |
Yvan Verougstraete (born 6 October 1975) is a Belgian business executive and politician. He founded the pharmacy and parapharmacy chain Medi-Market in January 2014 and served as its chief executive until 2021, building it into a multi-country retail chain before stepping back into full-time politics.
Verougstraete's career began in management consulting and moved through food retail before he founded the pharmacy chain. Since leaving that executive role in 2021, Verougstraete has made smaller investments and launched a second business, while also serving as a member of the European Parliament and, from 2025, president of the Belgian party Les Engagés. This article treats Verougstraete's business career as the primary subject; his political career is covered separately below.
Early life and education
Verougstraete was born on 6 October 1975 in Ixelles, Belgium. His full given name is recorded as Yvan Jacques Louis Christiane Verougstraete. He attended secondary school at the Collège Saint Michel in Etterbeek. Verougstraete earned a law degree from the Université catholique de Louvain in 1997, followed by a master's degree in business administration from the Vlerick Business School.
Career
McKinsey and Delitraiteur, 1999 to 2004
Verougstraete began his professional career at the consultancy McKinsey & Company, where he worked as an engagement manager from 1999 to 2002. He then joined the supermarket chain Delitraiteur, where Verougstraete became chief operating officer at the age of 27, holding that post from 2002 to 2004.
Divine Cuisine and Tasty Food, 2004 to 2013
In 2004, Verougstraete left Delitraiteur to found his own company, Divine Cuisine, which supplied prepared meals to supermarkets. He served as its managing director until 2010. Verougstraete then became managing director of Tasty Food from 2010 to 2011. That company subsequently merged with the meat business Viangro Group, where Verougstraete worked as secretary-general in 2012. In the decade between leaving Delitraiteur and founding his best-known company, Verougstraete therefore ran a succession of smaller food businesses before moving into pharmacy retail.
Founding and leading a pharmacy chain, 2014 to 2021
In January 2014, with the backing of a group of investors, Verougstraete founded Medi-Market, a chain of pharmacies and parapharmacy stores. He served as its chief executive from the company's founding until May 2021. Under Verougstraete's leadership the chain expanded beyond Belgium into France, Luxembourg and Italy, and by the time he left the chief executive role it operated around 85 outlets, including 55 general points of sale, 24 pharmacies and seven "Institut by Medi-Market" locations.
In 2015, the Belgian Order of Pharmacists brought a case against the company before the Commercial Court of Nivelles, accusing it of creating confusion between its pharmacy and parapharmacy operations. The dispute was resolved in 2019, when the Market Court upheld a decision of the Belgian Competition Authority that had found the Order of Pharmacists itself in breach of competition law, though the court reduced the fine facing the Order from 1 million euros to 250,000 euros.
In 2019, the magazine Trends-Tendances named Verougstraete "Manager of the Year" for his management of the company; one source dates the announcement of this award to 2020, covering the 2019 performance year. He stepped down as chief executive in 2021, handing the role to Cédric Antoine, though Verougstraete remained on the company's board of directors as a director.
Investing, from 2021
After leaving that executive role, Verougstraete moved into investing. In 2021, he joined the Belgian holding company Whitestone, listed on Euronext, which raised 8 million euros around that time. Verougstraete also took a shareholding in Newtree, a small Brussels-based company that had originally been active in food before repositioning itself as an impact investor; Newtree raised 1.6 million euros in the same period.
Prego!, from 2023
In 2023, Verougstraete launched Prego!, a catering business specialising in Italian food, particularly fresh pasta, together with Julie Vandenbrande, who became its chief executive. The first Prego! outlet opened in April 2023 in Woluwe-Saint-Pierre, the same commune where Verougstraete had begun his political career decades earlier. Prego! is a separate business from Medi-Market, with no ownership connection stated in the dossier beyond Verougstraete's own involvement in founding both companies.
Political career
Verougstraete's political activity began before his business career and resumed after it. In 1994, at the age of 18, he was elected a local councillor in his native commune of Woluwe-Saint-Pierre, becoming the youngest local councillor in Belgium at the time. He was then affiliated with the Parti social-chrétien, a predecessor party to Les Engagés.
After leaving the company in 2021, Verougstraete returned to politics and joined Les Engagés. He became the party's vice-president in June 2022. He was the party's lead candidate in the June 2024 European Parliament elections and was elected a Member of the European Parliament on 9 June 2024 with 63,530 votes. On 20 June 2024, Les Engagés left the European People's Party group to join Renew Europe. Verougstraete was elected vice-chair of the European Parliament's committee on industry, research and energy on 23 July 2024. He was also re-elected to the Woluwe-Saint-Pierre communal council in October 2024. In February 2025, he became acting president of Les Engagés after Maxime Prévot left the post to become a minister in the De Wever government, and on 13 April 2025 he was elected president of the party outright.
Personal life
Verougstraete is married to Isabelle Genart. French- and Italian-language sources describe the couple as having three children, while a Dutch-language source gives a count of four; the dossier does not resolve the discrepancy.
Assessment
Verougstraete built a pharmacy start-up founded in January 2014 into a multi-country retail chain of roughly 85 outlets across Belgium, France, Luxembourg and Italy within seven years, and his management of the company was recognised with a "Manager of the Year" award from Trends-Tendances in 2019. His tenure also drew scrutiny: a 2015 complaint from the Belgian Order of Pharmacists over how the company presented its pharmacy and parapharmacy operations took four years to resolve in court, although the final ruling went against the Order rather than against Verougstraete's business. Since leaving that executive role in 2021, Verougstraete's business activity has been smaller in scale, limited to minority investments in Whitestone and Newtree and the launch of the food business Prego!, while most of his public activity has shifted to his political career as a member of the European Parliament and, since 2025, as president of Les Engagés. Taken together, the record shows a businessman whose most substantial achievement remains the pharmacy chain he built and left more than a decade into his working life, with his subsequent business ventures markedly smaller than that first success.