- In 1981, Van der Stighelen took his first steps into the advertising world as a copywriter at McCann-Erickson. Four years later he started working in the same position at competitor TBWA and another year later at Young & Rubicam. In 1989 he became creative director.
- His father was a ship repairman and his mother took care of the children. He grew up as the middle of five in Kapellen. There he went to the Royal Athenaeum. He did not pursue higher studies.
- On the night of March 1 to March 2, 2011, his son Mattias fell into an unprotected basement hole during a student party and died at the scene. In the nights that followed, Van der Stighelen tried to write down what was going on in his head. "Like a disaster tourist in his own head," he described it himself. He set the lyrics to music with his friend, the singer Jean Bosco Safari. He published the poetry collection Jij bent de zon nu, published by Uitgeverij Lannoo, with the texts about how he experienced the first days after the accident.
- Since 2014 he has been writing columns, working on a historical novel and writing Antwerp translations of evergreens for the local group De Grungblavers, with whom he performs together. He sings and accompanies himself on the piano.
- In 2011, his son lost his life and Van der Stighelen stepped out of advertising.
- In 1979 he started working as a screenwriter at the then BRT (Belgian Radio and Television). A year later, he swapped the television world for a job as an illustrator at the weekly Flair.
- Guillaume Van der Stighelen, was trained as a landscape architect, a profession he never carried out.
- Together with André Duval he started advertising agency Duval Guillaume. At the height of Duval Guillaume (250 employees, branches in Brussels, Antwerp, New York and Paris), the business was sold to the Publicis group. Van der Stighelen was asked to stay on to improve the group's creative product worldwide.
- In 2012, he made a two-part documentary in the United States for television channel Canvas about the campaigns behind the presidential election.
- In 1996 Guillaume Van der Stighelen started his own advertising agency together with André Duval: Duval Guillaume. The agency got off to a flying start and quickly grew into one of the most successful agencies in Belgium. Meanwhile, there are branches in Brussels, Antwerp and New York.
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