Thomas Leysen

Thumas Leysen serves as Chair of the Board of Governors at King Baudouin Foundation. He co-founded and served as President & Charmain at The Shift. He served as Chairman at KBC Group. He started his career in the maritime business in Hamburg, London, and Tokyo. He also serves as Chairman, Board Directors at UmicoreFrom 1983 till 1988, he managed the Transcor group, which he built into an international oil and coal trading company with activities in Europe, America and Asia. In 1989, he managed the restructuring of the General Trading Cy, a subsidiary of the Societ Gnrale de Belgique. He joined Umicore in 1993 as member of the Executive Committee, and successively managed several industrial divisions. He became Executive Vice President of the company in 1998. Between 2000 and November 2008 he was Chief Executive Officer of the group. During this mandate, he transformed the former Union Miniere, a non-ferrous company in an international materials-technology group called Umicore. Chairman of Umicore since 2008. He is also Chairman of the Board of Corelio; member of the Trilateral Commission and of the European Round Table of Industrialists; from 2008 until 2011 he was Chairman of the Federation of Belgian Enterprises. In the cultural sphere, he is Chairman of the Rubenianum Fund and Chairman of the Heritage Fund of the Fondation Roi Baudouin.