Peter-Frans Pauwels is a Dutch

Netherlands

The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...

 entrepreneur

Entrepreneur

An entrepreneur is an owner or manager of a business enterprise who makes money through risk and initiative.The term was originally a loanword from French and was first defined by the Irish-French economist Richard Cantillon. Entrepreneur in English is a term applied to a person who is willing to...

.

In 1991, soon after he completed his studies in Business and Computer Science at the Universiteit van Amsterdam

Universiteit van Amsterdam

The University of Amsterdam or the UvA is a public research university located in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Founded in 1632 as the Athenaeum Illustre by the scholars Gerardus Vossius and Caspar Barlaeus, it is the third-oldest university in the Netherlands...

, he founded, with his former university mate Pieter Geelen, a company called Palmtop Software, which was later renamed to TomTom

TomTom

TomTom NV is a Dutch manufacturer of automotive navigation systems, including both stand-alone units and software for personal digital assistants and mobile telephones. It is the leading manufacturer of navigation systems in Europe. TomTom's customer service is located in Amsterdam, Netherlands...

. He is currently Chief Technical Officer

Chief technical officer

A chief technology officer is an executive-level position in a company or other entity whose occupant is focused on scientific and technological issues within an organization....

 of TomTom.

In 2006, the Dutch magazine Quote stated that Pauwels was then the richest Dutch person less than 41 years old, with a fortune of about 766 million euros. In 2010, Quote ranked Pauwels the 100th richest Dutch person, with 280 million euros.

He presented on 8 June 2009 the TomTom iPhone

IPhone

The iPhone is a line of Internet and multimedia-enabled smartphones marketed by Apple Inc. The first iPhone was unveiled by Steve Jobs, then CEO of Apple, on January 9, 2007, and released on June 29, 2007...

 solution at the WWDC.