Business POV

As CTO and president of the Xerox Innovation Group, Ms. Vandebroek leads global research for the company and helps make decisions about what to take to market. Here, she discusses the organizational structure of Xerox and how the company sees its role in the wider world.

The segment was filmed Sept. 26 at the "Innovation Conversation," an event hosted by The Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce in conjunction with the Wired NextFest at Millennium Park.

About Ms. Vandebroek:

Dr. Sophie Vandebroek is Xerox’s Chief Technology Officer and the President of the Xerox Innovation Group. She was named to this position January 2006, and became a Corporate Vice President in February 2006. 

Vandebroek is responsible for overseeing Xerox’s worldwide research centers and for maximizing the company’s return on investments in research and technology. 


Previously, she was Chief Engineer of Xerox Corporation and Vice President of the Xerox Engineering Center. As Chief Engineer Vandebroek was responsible for coordinating Xerox's engineering efficiency and effectiveness, a period during which Xerox refreshed more than 95 percent of its product line and launched its flagship iGen3™ Digital Production Press. Prior to that, she served as Chief Technology Officer at Carrier Corp. From 1991 until 2000, Vandebroek held a number of increasingly responsible roles at Xerox including technical advisor to Xerox's chief operating officer and director of the Xerox Research Centre of Canada. 

Vandebroek is a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical & Electronics Engineers and served as an elected member on the IEEE Electron Devices Society Administrative Committee. She is also a Fulbright Fellow and a Fellow of the Belgian-American Educational Foundation. She holds 12 US patents. 

Vandebroek has received awards from Xerox, IBM, HP, Monsanto, the Belgium National Science Foundation, Semiconductor Research Corporation, IEEE, and Cornell University. Vandebroek served as a judge for MIT’s Technology Review Young Innovators awards, the Wall Street Journal Innovation awards and the FIRST Lego and Robotics competition regional awards. Vandebroek is a member of the Board of Directors of Analogic Corporation, the director of PARC Inc., a trustee of Worchester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) and serves on several university and professional advisory boards. 

Vandebroek was born in Leuven, Belgium where she earned a master's degree in electro-mechanical engineering from Katholieke Universiteit, Leuven, Belgium, and a Ph.D. in electrical engineering from Cornell University. 

Vandebroek lives in Lincoln, MA with her husband and their six teenage children.