Being involved professionally in festivals that bring talented artists alive on stage and deepen artistic views is what makes me happy.

As Operations Manager, Gert Naessens oversees, monitors and controls the financial and administrative operation of the organisation and its initiatives: the European House for Culture, A Soul for Europe and EFFE - Europe for Festivals, Festivals for Europe.

As a Project Manager, he was responsible to manage the EFFE Jury as well as the network of EFFE Hubs in the last 5 years and also acted as the project leader for the development of the FestivalFinder.eu platform and recently also the development of the technical platform of Perform Europe..

Prior to joining EFA in 2016, he was for 4 years the General Manager of the Openbaar Entrepot voor the Kunsten (OPEK), a historical building in the Belgian university town Leuven, that houses seven art organizations, known in Belgium in the field of theater, dance, performance and art education. For the 5 years prior to OPEK, Gert was responsible for the marketing and communication of the Music Department of the Centre for Fine Arts in Brussels (BOZAR). In this position he also built his international network through embassies and cultural institutes.

Gert had a former career in the IT-sector, first as a support engineer and later as a Business Developer in Software development. In his further career Gert often used his IT background to take responsibilities in the domain of IT services. Between the age of 14 and 34, Gert traveled the world as a musician. In his whole career, Gert has always been devoted to the arts.