François M. de Visscher
President, de Visscher & Co.
Managing Director, Source Companies, LLC

François M. de Visscher, a Co-Chairman of Business Growth Alliance, LLC., is also the Founder and President of de Visscher & Co. headquartered in Greenwich Connecticut. Mr. de Visscher is a pioneer in the field of financial advice to family companies and family offices. A native of Belgium, Mr. de Visscher has been an active advisor to business owning families for over twenty years, mostly in the United States, Canada, Europe, the Middle East and Latin America. In 1990, Mr. de Visscher 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 15 years, he and his team have advised over 250 family companies and family offices worldwide on issues of liquidity for shareholders or capital needs of their business. Mr. de Visscher is also a Managing Director of Source Companies, LLC, a leading a leading multi-disciplinary professional practice that provides business growth advisory and investment banking services to high net worth clients, who own controlling interests in larger middle market companies.

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 co-founded “Family Capital Growth Partners”, a private equity fund focused on making minority and majority equity investments in family-owned and closely held companies.

Mr. de Visscher is a family 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 over $4.0 Billion in over 100 countries manufacturing and marketing a wide variety of steel wire and related products. Mr. de Visscher is also a director of the family’s Holding Company, Bekaert A.K.

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, J.H. Whitney Pan Asian Fund and Arrow Capital Advisors, LLC in the U.S.  In 2006, he was asked by the Consul General of Belgium in New York to serve as President of Friends of Belgium in New York.

Mr. de Visscher is a past president of the Family Firm Institute, 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. Mr. de Visscher is the recipient of the ‘Richard Beckhart Award” from the Family Firm Institute in Boston, recognizing his many valuable 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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