Tim Van Havenbergh

Tim Van Havenbergh is CIO BeNeLux and a member of the BeNeLux Board of Management at Mercedes-Benz. His career spans more than two decades and reflects a progression from hands-on technology roles to strategic leadership across IT, business transformation, data, and AI.
Tim began his career in infrastructure and software development, giving him a strong technical foundation and a lasting appreciation for the people who build, manage, and support technology. He subsequently moved into ICT management, taking responsibility for business and IT alignment, ERP implementation, process improvement, and the coaching of IT professionals. At Continental Foods, he held increasingly international responsibilities across Belgium, France, and the wider group. A defining achievement during this period was leading a complex IT carve-out, encompassing workplace, network, email, infrastructure, and ERP migration. These experiences shaped his ability to combine strategic direction with pragmatic execution.

Since 2018, Tim has led IT for Mercedes-Benz BeNeLux. In this role, he has focused on establishing IT as a trusted business partner, strengthening operational stability, accelerating digitalization, and creating the organizational capabilities required for continuous transformation. He works closely with business leaders, European markets, and headquarters to connect local priorities with broader enterprise objectives.

One of Tim’s defining career achievements is his contribution to transforming a fragmented European data landscape into a more connected and standardized ecosystem. He established the European Data & BI Swarm, bringing together business experts, data specialists, and IT leaders from multiple markets. Through shared priorities, reusable solutions, and collective engagement with headquarters, the community strengthened collaboration and laid a scalable foundation for analytics and AI. Its impact demonstrates Tim’s belief that technology creates sustainable value only when people unite around a common purpose.

Tim describes his leadership style as servant leadership with a clear “people first” philosophy. He leads through trust, influence, openness, and community rather than hierarchy. He invests in people’s growth, encourages ownership and co-creation, and creates space for teams to learn, challenge established practices, and turn ideas into outcomes. His leadership combines ambition with authenticity: setting a clear direction while remaining approachable, curious, and strongly connected to the people behind the technology.

For Tim, the role of a CIO is ultimately about connecting two worlds. Technology provides the possibilities, but people provide the energy, creativity, and commitment needed to turn those possibilities into meaningful and lasting business value.