Barend has three professional goals: to understand, to help and to enjoy doing that.

Barend has been working with professionals since 1997. He works mainly for law firms, legal departments and notaries, but he also conducted assignments for other professional services firms such as accounting firms, public affairs firms and architects' firms.

Barend is a trainer on specialised management training programs established by Solvay Business School / Barreau de Bruxelles, the Belgian Institute for Company Lawyers, the Federation of Belgian Notaries and other associations for professionals. The topics he covers include strategy, marketing, leadership and partnership. He has published a book on marketing for the liberal professions, commissioned by the FVIB.

Before co-founding FrahanBlondé in 2006, Barend assisted the General Counsel of bpost, the Belgian national postal company, with the restructuring of the legal department. Before that, he was the Client Development Manager for Allen & Overy in Belgium for seven years. Barend was the first in-house marketing professional in a Belgian law firm and one of the first on the European continent.

Barend has a degree in law from the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven and a degree in Business Administration from IAG, Université Catholique de Louvain-La-Neuve. Additionally, he was trained in Professional Services Marketing and Key Account Management at Cranfield University (UK).