François M. de Visscher, a native of Belgium, has been an active advisor to business owning families for over 25 years, mostly in the United States, Canada, Europe, the Middle East and Latin America. In 1990, he founded de Visscher & Co., one of the world’s leading independent financial consulting and investment banking firms for family and closely-held companies. Over the last 20 years, he and his team have advised over 300 family companies and family offices worldwide on issues of liquidity of shareholders or capital needs of their business. Prior to opening his own firm he was a partner at Smith Barney, where he founded and ran Wall Street’s first Family Business Group. In 1998, Mr. de Visscher founded “Family Capital Growth Partners”, a private equity fund focused on making equity investments in family-owned and closely held companies and in 2006, he co-founded the BGA as an effort to create greater collaboration among advisors to Family Businesses.

Mr. de Visscher is a director and shareholder of his own family’s global enterprise, N.V. Bekaert S.A. Headquartered in Belgium, Bekaert was founded by his great-grandfather in 1880. Today, the Bekaert Group has sales of $6.0 Billion in over 100 countries manufacturing and marketing a wide variety of steel wire and related products, and is controlled by the Bekaert Family across three generations.

Mr. de Visscher is a partner, investor or director of several private corporations including Olympia Chimneys, Epic Brands in the U.K., Ambridge Corp. in Colombia, Passport Brands, J.H. Whitney Pan Asian Fund and Park Avenue Equity in the U.S. In 2006, he was asked by the Consul General of Belgium in New York to serve as Chairman of The Society of Friends of Belgium in America.

Among his contributions to the field, Mr. de Visscher served as a director and president of the Family Firm Institute, (Boston, MA). He is the current Chairman of the European Family Office Conference, and a contributor to many publications, including The Wall Street Journal, LA Times, NY Times and many others. He is a full-time contributing editor of Family Business Magazine. In 2003, Mr. de Visscher received the Richard Beckhard Practice Award from the Family Firm Institute in recognition of his many contributions to the field of family businesses.

Mr. de Visscher is a Certified Public Accountant and a member of the American Institute of CPA’s. Mr. de Visscher holds a Bachelor of Economics honors degree from Université Catholique de Louvain (Belgium) and MBA from Rutgers University.

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