Belgian businesspeople

Baron Philippe André Eugène Bodson (2 November 1944 – 4 April 2020) was a Belgian businessman and politician. He served in the Belgian Senate from 1999 to 2003.

Georges, Count Jacobs de Hagen (born 1940) is a leading Belgian businessman.
Jacobs obtained a PhD degree in Law (1962) and a licentiate in economics (1964) from the Universite Catholique de Louvain (Belgium). He also obtained a MA degree in economics at the University of California (Berkeley, U.S., 1965).
Jacobs started his career as an economist with the International Monetary Fund in Washington, D.C. in 1966. In 1970, he joined the UCB Group and has been chairman of the Executive Committee of UCB since 1987 until the end of 2004. Since January 2005 he is chairman of the board of directors of UCB Group and chairman of the board of directors of Delhaize Group. Georges Jacobs also serves on the board of directors of UCB, Belgacom, Bekaert, Spadel and SN Brussels Airlines. He is an honorary chairman of UNICE (Union of Industrial and Employers' Confederations of Europe) and a member of the Management Committee and honorary chairman of the Federation of Belgian Companies.
Jacobs is chairman of the Belgo-Luxemburg-Polish chamber of commerce, and a member of the board of the American Chamber of Commerce and the British Chamber of Commerce in Belgium. He is also member of the board of Générale de Banque, IBM Belgium, Spadel S.A., L.I.V. N.V. (Groupe Carmeuse).

Georges Ugeux is a dual citizen of Belgium, his native country, and the United States, and was Group Executive Vice President of the New York Stock Exchange from 1996 to 2003. His banking career began in the 1970s in Europe, and he is currently the CEO of Galileo Global Advisors, a New York-based investment bank catering to emerging markets. He is a notable member of the Belgian diaspora, due to his influence in the world of international finance. He is a frequent public speaker and an op-ed contributor to the Huffington Post.

Elvis Pompilio (born 1961) is a Belgian fashion designer who specialises in hats. He was born in Liège to a family of Italian origin.
Pompilio entered business in 1987, with a workshop in Brussels where he produced designs for use in fashion shows by marques such as Dior and Valentino. In 1990, he opened a retail store in central Brussels. He later opened a store in Antwerp, followed by branches in Paris and London. His designs are sold in the United States and Japan.
Pompilio was a nominee on the RTBF show Le plus grand Belge (The Greatest Belgian) in 2005, finishing in 84th place.

Didier Bellens (9 June 1955 – 28 February 2016) was a Belgian businessman. Until 15 November 2013, he was the CEO of Belgacom, the leading telecommunications company of Belgium. He was married and had three children. He died on 28 February 2016.

Lieven Gevaert (28 May 1868 – 2 February 1935) was a Flemish industrialist. His father died when he was only three years old. He started his career in the company he founded together with his mother in 1889, which produced photographic paper according to traditional methods. In 1894, he founded the company Gevaert & Co, which in 1920, was transformed to N.V Gevaert Photo-producten, merged in 1964 with Agfa AG to become Gevaert-Agfa NV and later Agfa-Gevaert NV.
Already at an early age, he felt socially responsible and wanted to advance the status of Dutch in Belgium. His personal ideas were strongly influenced by the social encyclical Rerum novarum (1891) and the writings of Lodewijk De Raet. He supported several Flemish initiatives as a manager, but stayed outside politics. His main objectives were the introduction of Dutch as a business language, and the foundation of a sound Dutch-speaking education as a means to establish a Flemish elite. In 1926, when the Vlaamsch Handelsverbond (Vlaams Economisch Verbond, VEV) was founded, Gevaert was its first chairman. Later, he founded the Sint-Lievenscollege in Antwerp, where he lived on Belgiëlei.

Jean-Michel Nihoul better known as Michel Nihoul (23 April 1941, Verviers, Belgium - 23 October 2019, Zeebrugge, Belgium) was a Belgian businessman and convicted felon. During the 1990s and 2000s, he was the subject of a media and legal case in connection with the Marc Dutroux Affair, but was acquitted with a Nolle prosequi in 2010 for alleged involvement in child abduction. But Nihoul was sentenced to five years' imprisonment for drug trafficking and criminal association.