John Blankendaal

Meet John Blankendaal

John Blankendaal (1961) is Managing Director of Brainport Industries. Brainport Industries is a network of 100+ tier-one, tier-two and tier three suppliers in the open high-tech supply network in The Netherlands. Brainport Industries connects these suppliers so that they can cooperate and share knowledge to accelerate their business. Projects are clustered around ‘Technology’, ‘Business’, and ‘People’.

In the Technology domain Brainport Industries acts as front runner of Smart Industry in The Netherlands with fieldlabs around Flexible Manufacturing, Smart Logistics and Smart Connected Supplier Network, etc. Besides, John is also active in data driven initiatives on a European scale, like Market 4.0 and IDSA. Recently a European project was launched for the development of an adaptive AR support (i.e. HoloLens) for training and guidance in assembly making use of an AI based adaptive algorithm based on both productivity and quality as well as operator capacity and needs.  And he is also part of Smart Factory EU, where on a European scale digital innovation hub are being established with parties like Flanders Make, Sirrus, Smart Factory Kaiserslautern.

Before joining Brainport Industries, John Blankendaal was Program Manager High Tech and Solar Industry at N.V. Brabantse Ontwikkelings Maatschappij (BOM). Earlier he worked for KEMA (global energy consultancy company) and he started his career as Business Analyst and corporate finance consultant at Ernst & Young.

Because of his knowledge and expertise, John holds various steering committee positions and is been asked frequently as speaker in the high-tech industry. Next to building relationships with Dutch network groups, John has also extended his scope to networks in Germany like VDMA, BW int., Medical Mountains, Mechatronic & Automation, etc. He is also partner in various international Industry 4.0 projects.