Patrik Vandewalle is handing over the pwrteams CEO reins to Karel Saurwalt
Patrik Vandewalle, Co-founder and CEO of pwrteams, the international leader in building cross-border IT organizations, is handing the management of the company over to an experienced business leader Karel Saurwalt. Vandewalle will continue as a Member of the Board of pwrteams.
According to Patrik Vandewalle, pwrteams Co-founder and CEO it is a symbolic time to hand off the torch. “Exactly 15 years ago I launched Skelia, the predecessor of pwrteams, and have been growing it into a mature leader over these years. I’m so proud of the work we have done with the team. I’d like to thank everybody for contributing to this success story. I feel it is a perfect time for me to step back from daily operations and continue as a Board Member. What an enjoyable ride it has been!”.
Karel Saurwalt is a seasoned business leader with over a decade of experience in running successful staff augmentation businesses, MSPs, and SaaS companies globally. He has a degree in Business Economics and has combined his passion for technology and business to create innovative solutions for various industries. Alongside his professional endeavors, Karel has a love for adventure and sports, including mountain biking and race car driving.
“I’m happy to hand over the role to Karel, to the next generation. He has the experience, the background and very much the same core values as us. His enthusiasm and positive energy will be a great addition to our team and a good fit. I will continue to actively support Karel, our managers, and our customers from my board position, and secure a smooth transition,” said Patrik Vandewalle, pwrteams Co-founder.
According to pwrteams new CEO Karel Saurwalt, he is delighted to have been appointed to lead pwrteams. “The company has a strong international presence, impressive portfolio of clients, long-term strategic growth ambitions, combined with strong values and an extremely talented team. I would also like to use this opportunity to thank Patrik for his ongoing support during the transfer period,” added Saurwalt.
Looking three years down the road, according to Saurwalt, pwrteams is in the perfect shape for continued international expansion, customer satisfaction, and employee happiness.
“Our client partners, business leaders, and talent acquisition teams will get the tools and means to better address distributed, multi-country customer teams and source from additional locations across the globe. “I am looking forward to working with our team to bring the company forward and realize the full potential of the organization,” commented Saurwalt.
“To properly bring this era to a close, I want to take a moment to celebrate our exceptional growth. In 2022, pwrteams revenue grew by 40%, thanks to our employees’ dedication and our loyal customers across Europe, the Nordics, the UK, and North America. We confirmed our position as an international leader in building stable cross-border organizations and outperformed the market despite the economic downturn, the Russian invasion and the atrocities faced by our Ukrainian colleagues. Additionally, over the past 12 months, we have successfully integrated Skelia to become a specialized Nortal Group company and rebranded ourselves into pwrteams,” added Vandewalle.
About pwrteams
pwrteams is the international leader in building cross-border IT and engineering organizations in Eastern Europe, in the Baltics and Balkan countries. For over a decade we have provided staff augmentation services to premium customers across the world and stand out by exceptional team retention, engineering quality and business transparency.
