Chief Legal Officer, Materialise, BE


Born in the small Flemish town of Duffel in 1975, Carla Van Steenbergen made her first steps towards a legal career in 1994 at the Catholic University of Leuven. Following her graduation, she earned the right to call herself a practicing lawyer upon completion of a tough three‐year apprenticeship in the Brussels Bar Association. One last return to academia saw her earn an LLM at King’s College London in 2003. Her first position, and the one she still holds to this day, was as Legal Counsel for Materialise.

When Carla joined Materialise in 2003, the company was only 11 years old and was steadily working towards a better and healthier world using a somewhat unknown technology…3Dprinting. As the company’s sole lawyer until 2008, Carla quickly became versed in the opportunities and challenges related to this evolving technology. Striving not to be an ivory‐tower‐legal‐counsel, Carla applied a working method of first trying to understand the wild ideas of her colleagues with the aim of striking the right balance between what they wanted and what was feasible (from legal point of view).

With her wealth of knowledge about the company and industry, Carla has also joined Materialise’s Executive Committee in addition to being Secretary to the Board of Directors. Her passion for the company and what it stands for – a better and healthier world aided by 3D printing – has recently seen her take a more public position as well. She has become one of the companies’ spokespeople, explaining the activities of the company, the unique benefits of 3D printing technology and the challenges faced by those in the industry.