Location Brussels, Brussels Hoofdstedelijk Gewest, Belgium Regions European Union (EU), Europe, Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) Gender Male
Website finwise.eu LinkedIn View on LinkedIn
I am founder of Finwise, a B2B advisory company for startup entrepreneurs.My passions are related to finance, investments, real estate and discovering other cultures.I was brought up in a small Flemish village where everyone seemed to live a safe and predictable life; no-one in our family ever moved outside the area where they had grown up as a
kid. But I guess I was curious, impatient and adamant about jumping out of the fish bowl. After landing a first job as an analyst at a bank in Brussels I soon found a way to get into expat life. And I was lucky enough that my wife shared my passion. I worked my way up the corporate ladder in what later became Dexia group in corporate credit, international finance and capital markets, first in Dublin and later in Cyprus. Then the opportunity came up in late 2008 to set up a new Swiss entity for Belgian online broker and Fintech pioneer Keytrade Bank in Geneva. Experiencing first-hand the daily challenges of running and scaling a lean-and-mean startup has been a valuable learning experience. Our team succesfully focused on excellent client service as a differentiator with established players. We worked with all types of investors from retail to asset managers and HNW-individuals.
In 2016 I decided to step out of the golden cage and we came back ‘home’ as we decided it was important for our three teenagers to have a Belgian experience. It was also time to realise another dream, which was to set up my own company. Where I had always been fascinated by startups I also realised that they often had difficulty understanding the investor mindset. Having worked myself on the investor side for a long time sourcing/closing deals and having an established investor network I decided to focus on connecting both worlds.
