Duco Sickinghe scored 82% in the CEO Report, just ahead of Bert Degraeve of steel-wire maker Bekaert on 81%. The scores are calculated according to share-price evolution, profit history, investment durability, financial transparency and management style, with an independent jury awarding up to 50 points for leadership, strategy and social participation. The report is limited to companies in the Bel20 stock exchange index, which Telenet only joined last year.

“I’m surprised, of course, and obviously extremely proud,” Sickinghe told De Standaard. “Winning first place is a recognition for the company.”

Duco Sickinghe, aged 52, was born in Utrecht, and studied law before getting an MBA at Columbia University in the US. He joined Hewlett Packard, working for the company in Geneva; and NeXT Computers, the company started by Steve Jobs between his two stints at Apple.

When NeXT stopped trading, Sickinghe set up Software Direct, which published CD-ROMs, then returned to the Netherlands to Wolters Kluwer, a publisher of specialised legal and corporate texts. He became a partner at Callahan Associates and, when they took over a majority share of Telenet in 2001, Sickinghe became CEO.

The Telenet Vlaanderen project was set up by the Flemish government in 1995 to stimulate technological development. Its first job was to integrate the different cable networks in Flanders, then run by intercommunal agencies, into a single entity.

Telenet later became a telephone operator, and started to provide internet services, introducing broadband in Mechelen and Hoboken as early as 1997. The company now provides telephony, internet and digital TV services in direct competition with former state-owned monopoly Belgacom. The company had sales of €1.2 billion in 2009, and profits after tax of €233 million.

Sickinghe revealed his secret. “You have to be the best ideas-thief in the company. You have to surround yourself with people who generate good ideas. And it’s your role to pick out the best ideas and bring them into the light, and maybe also to put other good ideas on the back-burner for a while. And you have to motivate people. Or rather, you can motivate them, but you must stretch them, just like the coach of a football team, who gets just that little bit extra out of them for an important match.”