Christophe Leclercq

Christophe Leclercq (born 31 August 1962) is a French media entrepreneur and innovation specialist based in Brussels. He is best known as the founder of EURACTIV, the EU-policy media network he launched in 1999 and grew into an operation publishing in roughly a dozen languages across multiple European capitals, reaching more than half a million mostly policy-professional and journalist readers. He ran the company directly for about ten years before shifting his focus to network development, strategy, and external partnerships. In May 2023, Leclercq and EURACTIV's other shareholders sold the network to the Belgian media group Mediahuis — Mediahuis's first international platform acquisition — with Leclercq publicly describing Mediahuis as a group "becoming one of Europe's media champions" that he trusted to "respect EURACTIV's values."

Before EURACTIV, Leclercq built a varied European career: he was an EU Commission official in DG Competition (where he served as coordinator for Information Society matters), a strategy consultant at McKinsey, the founder of the EuroManagers job fair, and a market-research manager at Renault Deutschland. His education spans Sciences Po Paris, HEC Paris (with additional study at NYU and in Cologne), and ULB Brussels, in political science, business administration, and international relations. He is fluent in French and English, conversational in German, and has some Italian and Russian.

Today Leclercq chairs Europe's MediaLab (the think-tank/foundation arm formerly branded Fondation EURACTIV PoliTech), through which he leads media-innovation programmes including #Media4EU and Stars4Media (Erasmus4Media), run with partners such as VUB, WAN-IFRA, the European Journalism Centre, EFJ, and Comenius University. Since January 2018 he has served as an expert on the European Commission's High-Level Expert Group on disinformation, and he has held teaching roles at the Institut d'Études Européennes/ULB in Brussels. He is also associated with EDMO (European Digital Media Observatory) governance and other EU media-policy bodies.

Note: while his source record labels him under "Angel Investors / Seed Round," Leclercq's public profile is that of a media founder, sector-consolidation advocate, and foundation-based backer of early-stage media innovation rather than a conventional financial angel with a broad startup portfolio.

• Backs early-stage, cross-border media and journalism-technology innovation, primarily channelled through Europe's MediaLab / Fondation EURACTIV programmes (e.g., Stars4Media) rather than through a classic personal angel fund.
• Strong conviction on media-sector consolidation: argues that "a wave of consolidation in the media sector will be a game-changer" and that cross-border consolidation is necessary given the EU Media Freedom Act, elections, and the growing disinformation threat.
• Focus areas he actively promotes: AI and translation technologies for news, fact-checking, disinformation defense, and pan-European cooperation among media outlets.
• Says "yes" to ventures and projects that are European in scope, mission-aligned with independent quality journalism and civic/democratic values, and that strengthen cross-border collaboration among publishers.
• Values operational and business-building capability (funding, skills, technology) as much as ideas — reflected in his framing of the Mediahuis deal as bringing "business knowledge, skills and… funding capabilities into AI, translation technologies, and marketing cooperation."