Peter Hinssen has a master's degree in Telecommunications and Electronic Engineering from Ghent University, Belgium. After graduating he joined Alcatel Telecom working in the Multimedia Research Centre. He was involved in the design and implementation of Interactive Television. Peter Hinssen was later involved in the Interactive Television Trials for the Bermuda Telephone Company and British Telecom.

Early 1995, Peter Hinssen left Alcatel to found e-COM Interactive Expertise, one of the leading Internet and e-commerce consultancy firms in Belgium. He was responsible for the implementation of large-scale Internet, e-commerce projects and information systems for companies such as Alcatel, DHL Worldwide Express, ING, SONY Europe, S.W.I.F.T. and Volvo.

In 1998, Alcatel acquired e-COM, and the company was renamed Alcatel e-COM. Peter Hinssen remained CEO, responsible for both the local and international operations. In 1999, Alcatel e-COM grew to more than 300 employees across Europe.

In 1999, Peter Hinssen co- founded Porthus, on the belief that applications would not reside on in-house servers at companies, but at external, specialised datacenters. Porthus thus pioneered Software-as-a-Service and Cloud computing. Porthus delivered its Business-to-Business solutions to over 1,000 companies, covering customer locations throughout Europe and beyond.  In 2010, Porthus was acquired by Canadian The Descartes Systems Group.  Peter Hinssen was chairman of Porthus from 1999 to 2010.

In 2000, Peter became ‘Entrepreneur in Residence’ with McKinsey & Company, with a focus on Technology enabled Innovation, and on the relationship between business and IT.