Frank Vermeulen co-founded Near grid Solutions in 2020 with Bart Meersman. Its aim was to accelerate the energy transition by solving difficulties with connecting electric equipment to the grid. Neargrid provides battery-based solutions to connect tower cranes to the grid.

Vermeulen is a native business developer and start-up founder. He develops new businesses using lean start-up methods combined with a good dose of creativity and joy. He focuses on early customer engagement even before any business is really created. The sooner the customer is involved, the faster the development goes.

There is no achievement without a strong team, he says, creating teams based on trust and empowerment of all the members.

Frank Vermeulen has more than 30 years of experience in the energy industry. He held pioneering positions in major Belgian utilities. In these jobs he helped facilitate energy liberalisation in the European electricity sector (1998 to 2012) and then the energy transition towards a fully renewable energy system (2012 to 2018).

Frank Vermeulen holds a MSc in electric engineering from the University of Ghent (Belgium), a MSc in Information and control technology from UMIST (UK) and an executive MBA from The Vlerick Business School in Belgium.