Acting as Co-Builders

Olivier is an architect by training and a senior entrepreneur whose main fields of expertise are in sustainable architecture, city infrastructure technologies, mobility and transport industries. He has over 20 years of experience of the global corporate world with a strong track-record in transformative M&A.

From 2000 to 2012 , Olivier co-founded and developed Urban Platform, an award-winning architecture studio fostering sustainable projects and urban-scale programs.

In 2010, he became the Chief Executive Officer of SPDG, the Périer-D’Ieteren family holding company. Over the last two decades, Olivier has taken several key governing roles within the D’Ieteren Group, the listed family-controlled global business that has been active in the automotive industry for seven generations. He currently serves as Deputy Chairman of the Board and Chairman of the Group’s Strategic Committee.

In addition to his role in the D’Ieteren Group, Olivier has expanded SPDG, investing in innovative companies anchored in geographical, social and technological macro-trends and in entrepreneurial ventures focused on sustainable solutions for the future of cities. Over the years, he has built a core team aligned with SPDG’s values of curiosity, courage, fairness, entrepreneurship and sustainability.

SPDG is also developing a Foundation that supports heritage conservation, education, research and social initiatives. Olivier is an ambassador for the EPIC Foundation, which scales up high-impact social nonprofits and a board member of the International Polar Foundation which supports polar scientific research and promotes informed actions on climate change.

Olivier holds a Master’s Degree in Architecture and Urban Planning from ULB and graduated from Solvay Business School and INSEAD. He is a keen sailor, mountaineer, runner, and traveller.

Michel has an in-depth experience in corporate investment and asset management, having worked for the Group GIB and Cobepa, among others. Michel was also a member of Cobepa’s Executive Team from 1995 to 2000.

After which, Michel became Finance Director of BIAC /Brussels Airport, from 2001 to 2005 and then became the CFO of the SNCB Holding, Belgian Railways from 2005 through to 2016. He is a respected member of several Boards of listed companies, such as D’Ieteren and Zetes. He is also a Professor at Brussels State University, ULB/Solvay Brussels School.

Michel holds a Master’s Degree in Civil Engineering in Physics and a Master’s Degree in Economics, from the ULB.

Denis has gained more than 14 years expertise in the fields of strategy, economic/regulatory, corporate finance and valuation advice. He has acquired profound international experience through several assignments and positions abroad. Having worked for PwC from 1997 to 2011, as Director at both PwC Advisory in Brussels and PwC Corporate Finance in Paris.

Denis is on the Advisory Board of Lighthouse India Fund II, and Director of various venture capital companies. He is also a Director of the D’Ieteren Group since June 2014.

His field of expertise is in network-based industries, with a focus on energy, clean-tech, utilities, telecommunication and transportation.

Denis is a civil engineer in Physics the Brussels State University, ULB, 1991 and holds a Master’s Degree in Business Management, from CEPAC, ULB, 1998.

Catheline is an Honorary Professor at the Brussels State University, ULB and member of the Belgian Royal Academy of Sciences, Letters and Arts. Furthermore, Catheline is Director of CREA-Patrimoine at the ULB. She is regularly invited as a guest lecturer at various European universities, is President of the International Council of Museums Committee for Conservation (ICOM-CC), and a Fellow of the International Institute.

Catheline is also a world-renowned consultant, assisting the European Commission, amongst others, on cultural heritage and conservation topics.

Christian has enjoyed an impressive career in the automotive industry, particularly as Marketing Director of Renault, Managing Director of Renault Technologies and Renault Sport F1 (winning 6 World Championships), and in the clean-tech industry.

He is a Senior Advisor for several automotive and clean-tech organisations and companies. Christian is also a member of several Boards (incl. Mobivia Group, Salon Automobile International de Lyon) and Commissions (incl. Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile / FIA “alternative energy” Commission).

Christian is an engineer, graduated from the Ecole Nationale Supérieure d’Arts & Métiers in Paris.

Maurice has acquired over his long and fruitful career an in-depth practical experience in corporate and investment management. In 1971, he started his career at the Electrobel Group (now Electrabel), taking on various roles and responsibilities until 1987.

He has been a member of several Boards, such as Director of Belron and Deputy Chairman of the D’Ieteren’s Board of Directors between 1993 and 2014.

Maurice holds a Master’s Degree in Civil and Commercial Engineering from the Brussels State University, ULB/Solvay.

Sophie is an international business leader who has spent most of her Executive career in consumer products and services. Her expertise in innovation, brand, talent development and general management stem from her 30+ years at L’Oréal.

Sophie was UK-based for 14 years, notably as L’Oréal UK/Ireland Managing Director as well as Chair and global CEO of The Body Shop, the iconic values-led brand and omni-channel retailer spanning 60 countries and c.20,000 people strong. Sophie then led L’Oréal’s Corporate financial communication and Strategic prospective, with a specific focus on digital acceleration.
Since 2019, Sophie has been Senior Advisor at Boston Consulting Group, Non-Executive Director of listed companies and Angel investor. Until 2022, she served on the board of Accor, where she chaired the Remuneration, Nominations and ESG committee. More recently, she served as Independent board member of the D’Ieteren group. Today, she serves on the board of Kingfisher plc where she chairs the Responsible Business committee, on the board of Givaudan and of Nasdaq-listed Cimpress.

Sophie is a graduate of ESSEC and INSEAD. She was appointed Foreign Trade Advisor for France in 2005, and a member of the Advisory Council at Saïd business school, University of Oxford.

Benjamin started his career in 2003 at GlaxoSmithkline Biologicals as Credit & Treasury Assistant Manager.

He then worked from 2005 until 2015 for PwC Belgium where he was involved in auditing large and medium size companies in various industries (payment, retail & distribution, manufacturing and services).
From the Summer of 2015 until the Summer of 2017, Benjamin worked for PwC in San Jose, California, where he was responsible for auditing large and medium size Technology & Information companies and was also involved in an advisory/M&A mission for a couple of months.
Upon his return to Belgium, Benjamin continued auditing large and medium size companies mainly in pharmaceutical/chemical, retail & distribution and real estate/hospitality sectors as group and/or component auditor reporting under USGAAP, IFRS and Belgian GAAP.

In 2019, Benjamin joined ALD Belgium, as General Secretary, where he built his own team from the ground up to implement in short period of time a Compliance and Risk Management program at the BeLux level in connection with EU banking standards.
As member of Executive Committee of ALD Belgium (+/- 320 FTEs) and Luxembourg (+/- 120 FTEs), he was leading the following domains: legal/privacy, internal control, operational risks, business continuity management, audit, information security, compliance and credit risks.

Further to the integration of LeasePlan by ALD in May 2023, Ayvens united the two companies together under a single common identity (Belgium +/- 600 FTEs and Luxembourg +/- 130 FTEs).
Benjamin was appointed Risk & Compliance Director at BeLux Level and was confirmed in his senior management team of Ayvens managing a team of more than 20 FTEs with the main objective to implement two separate risk lines of defenses (LOD1-LOD2) in accordance with the ECB requirements.
As part of LeasePlan merger with ALD started in January 2022, he was appointed Integration leader for the following streams: structuring (including finance and tax), legal, credit, compliance, internal control and audit.

Benjamin has a deep knowledge and experience in Finance (Credit, Accounting, Reporting and M&A in USGAAP, IFRS and Belgian GAAP), Governance, Compliance, and Risk management (Legal, Privacy, Internal Control, Audit, Information Security, Operational Risks-, and Business Continuity management).

He holds a Master’s Degree in Business Finance from the Facultés Universitaire Catholique de Mons (FUCAM).

Fiona joined SPDG in June 2018 as Office Manager and Team assistant, after spending 8 years at the European Real Estate Association (EPRA) as Office Manager supporting its CEO.

Starting her carrier in 1990 at Dow Corning, she then moved on to spend 8 years at Monsanto’s European HQ in Brussels as Assistant for the European corn and then wheat teams. She then took on a role in the public relations’ team at Estée Lauder Brussels, to then become Office Manager/PA to the CEO for 7 years of Weber Shandwick’s Brussels Public Relations and Affairs agency, which included various roles in Public Relations and HR.

Fiona holds a Bachelor’s degree from ISES, Brussels in Languages and Executive Assistance/Management, as well as a Bachelor’s degree in Interior Design from St Luc, Brussels.

She lives in Brussels and has two grown-up children. Being a keen road cyclist, skier and cook, she also has a passion for the world of colors. She speaks English, French and Dutch with good knowledge of German.

Julie is a French native and joined SPDG in June 2022 as an Accountant after spending 6 years working as an Assistant, Human Resources Officer and Accountant to the Managing Director of La Maison Degand, in Brussels.

She holds a French Bachelor’s Degree in Accountancy as well as Belgian equivalent certification.

A busy parent to her two children, in her spare time, she is a passionate dancer and enjoys many different dance styles.

13Guillaume began his career as an M&A Analyst at the Brussels-based advisory boutique Allyum, swiftly advancing to M&A Associate within a year. He led buy-side and sell-side mandates, gaining diverse industry experience in TMT, Chemicals and Energy.

Prior roles spanned Asset/Wealth Management (Banque Transatlantique, BlueBay AM), Private Equity (Lombard, TheClubDeal), and Strategy Consulting (Deloitte, McKinsey).

Guillaume holds a master’s degree in Corporate Finance & Banking with highest honors from EDHEC Business School in France. He also earned a Bachelor of Business Administration from the University of California Los Angeles, and Nanyang Technological University in Singapore.

Jean-Nicolas has developed his drive for growing and supporting new ventures through experience in finance, corporate venturing (FMCG Industry) and more recently in a Life Science Venture Capital firm.

He started his career as a Project Manager in a leading primary research firm for financial information, Thirdbridge in London.

After which he spent two and a half years at ABInBev, Belgium, acquiring experience across the operations board and finally leading the ZX Ventures entity (Corporate Venture) in Central Europe.

Before joining SPDG, Jean-Nicolas held the position of Investment Associate at Theodorus Investment Funds, a life science and deep tech focused Venture Capital fund.

Jean-Nicolas holds a Master’s in Management degree from the London Business School and graduated with honors as a Business Engineer from the Louvain School of Management.

He finds his passion in combining both data driven analyses and active hands-on support for growing ventures.

In his personal time, he enjoys playing tennis, skiing and is a keen diver. He speaks English, Dutch and French and conversational Italian.

Prior to joining SPDG, Stéphane was Senior Investment Officer and Head of financial sector at BIO, a development finance institution, where he developed an expertise in the financial sector and in SME investments in emerging markets.

Stéphane has a proven track record in private equity transactions over the full investment cycle, including an active involvement at Board and Management level. He has also gained experience in strategic planning and M&A projects in the building materials industry.

Stéphane holds a Master’s Degree in Business Engineering from the Louvain School of Management.

Cédric is a Senior Architect and Real Estate Advisor. He has acquired over the years a broad professional experience with public and private clients in a wide range of projects. He started his career with Michel Verliefden in A.2R.C. and co-founded Urban Platform in Brussels in 2000 where he is currently in charge of the Concept & Architectural Design services as well as the management of the company. He also runs the Real Estate Audit & Project Management Unit, supporting many projects advised by the studio.

Cédric holds a Master’s Degree in Architecture from the UCL’s department of Architecture (former ISA St-Luc Bruxelles), which included a year spent at the Istituto Universitarion di Architettura di Venezia in Italy. He is a graduate of the Executive Real Estate Programme of the Solvay Brussels School of Economics and Management where he was awarded 1st Prize.
He also followed several trainings in sustainable design and energy management.

He is fluent in English, Dutch, French and has good knowledge of Italian.

Frederic holds a Master degree in Electrical and Mechanical Engineering from the University of Brussels and a MBA from Harvard Business School where he was a Fulbright Scholar.

Before joining SPDG, Frédéric spent over 30 years in the high technology industry. From 2009 to its sale to Sony Corporation in 2015, Frédéric was COO & CFO of Brussels-based Softkinetic, world leader in 3D vision and gesture recognition, which he successfully integrated to make it Sony’s worldwide R&D competence center. Before then, he spent over 15 years at Alcatel (now Nokia) where he held a number of international management positions at Alcatel’s headquarters in Paris, France and in Antwerp, Belgium. From 1995 to 1998, as Deputy General Manager and Member of the Board of Directors, Frédéric started up the alternative telecom operator Metrolel in Barranquilla, Colombia. Frederic first joined Alcatel in 1989 as a Sales Manager for Singapore and Australia.

Frederic is a member of the Board of Directors of the Harvard Club of Belgium, the Fulbright Alumni Association in Belgium and the Royal International Club Château Sainte-Anne.

He is married with 4 children. He enjoys travels and family gatherings and is actively involved in the support of school and university education.

He speaks French, English, Dutch and Spanish.

Marc holds a Masters degree in Business Engineering from the Solvay Business School, Brussels, which he obtained in 1981. He is also an experienced instrument-rated pilot qualified on high performance aircraft.

Marc learned basic business and financial auditing at KPMG. He left KPMG to help create the French subsidiary of an innovative Atlanta-based software company that had developed the first mainframe-based accounting software. Following this exciting venture, Marc decided to repeat the experience – this time as an entrepreneur. Since 1987 Marc founded or co-founded several companies, amongst which Pillar, the first distributed PC/Mac-based financial planning software for corporations and Frango, an innovative financial consolidation software.

In 2003, Marc joined the Leuven-based Luciad, a small startup that had developed a real-time, 3D visualization software for the aerospatial industry and was entering the scaleup phase. Marc later became the CEO of Luciad and was instrumental in turning the Luciad software product into a worldwide standard. Luciad products are now used to give real-time situational awareness to users in dynamic environments on land, in the air and in the maritime sphere.  After merging Luciad into Hexagon, Marc became Chief Strategic Officer of Hexagon’s Geospatial Division.

In parallel to his operational roles, Marc supported several startups as angel investor (Ticketmatic, CarAsap – now Husk) and is a member of the W.IN.G investment committee, the public fund supporting startups in Wallonia. Marc also holds Director’s mandates in Biotech companies.

Michel has acquired more than 28 years’ experience in the high-tech sector, including start-ups, pre- and post-IPO companies.

Michel started his career in 1990 in Paris at Chorus Systems, an embedded software company acquired by Sun Microsystems (Oracle) in 1996. In 1997, he joined TIBCO Software in Palo Alto (CA, Nasdaq IPO in 1999) and held various senior management positions in London, Paris and Brussels until 2005. He then joined Brussels-based Softkinetic as CEO and led the company to become the world leader in 3D vision and gesture recognition technologies. Softkinetic was acquired by Sony Corp in 2015.

He currently serves as a member on various Boards, such as the smart cities specialist, Cleverciti Systems GmBH, the music streaming start-up, Muuselabs SA, the social media, Jack Media SA, and is an Advisor to the no-SQL database specialist, Hackolade SA. In 2018, Michel joined SPDG as Advisor.

Michel holds a Bachelor of Science Degree in Electrical Engineering from the Brussels School of Engineering, ULB and a Master of Science Degree in Computer Sciences from the University of California, Santa Barbara.

He enjoys kitesurfing, mathematics, philosophy and abstract art.

Nicola Crosta is one of the world’s leading experts on impact investment, philanthropy and non-profit management, with extensive experience among a wide range of impact-driven organizations.

At the United Nations and the OECD, Nicola held various senior management positions in the world’s top international organizations for a total of 18 years.  At the United Nations in New York, Nicola played a key role in helping to define the global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

During his time spent at the Epic Foundation, as an Executive Vice President and Board Member, Nicola helped to build one of the most innovative philanthropic Foundations from ground up. At Epic, Nicola oversaw one of the largest NGO and donor surveys ever performed globally and the development of cutting-edge non-profits’ due diligence and social impact monitoring methodologies.

Nicola is the Founder of Baan Dek, an award-winning social enterprise that provides access to services to thousands of migrant kids across Southeast Asia. In recent years, Baan Dek has become a strategic implementing partner of UNICEF and won the MIT Award for Social Innovation (Solve 2017).
He is also author and lecturer.  Nicola’s articles and books on social impact, development economics and philanthropy have been extensively translated and published globally. He has been visiting lecturer on social impact and innovation at MIT, Harvard, Sciences Po and the Hong Kong University.

Nicola is an Italian native and fluent in English, French.

He joins SPDG as Senior Advisor on the broad topic of sustainability.