Peter van Erum graduated as a zoologist and science teacher in 1990 from the University of Ghent, Belgium. In 1992 he started teaching biology and chemistry in a rural school in Tanzania.

He remained in East Africa (Tanzania and Uganda), working in various advisory and management positions: training coordinator, regional director, organisational development and program advisor, fundraiser, project manager, etc.

For most of these years, he worked for Trias, a Belgian non-governmental development organisation focusing on strengthening organisations of small-holder farmers and entrepreneurs. Currently, he is the regional partnership manager (East Africa) at the Trias Uganda office.

In 2007 he got bitten by the Solution Focus virus in an SF Brief Coaching training in Uganda by Peter Szabo. Since then, he has used SF practices throughout his management and advisory work and took part in various SF events organised by SOL World to keep on learning.