Contributor

Georges Ugeux

Adjunct professor Columbia Law School and CEO Galileo Global Advisors.

In 2003, Georges Ugeux founded Galileo Global Advisors LLC to offer CEOs, Boards of Directors and Governments independent advice on international business development, restructuring, compliance and capital market issues. He is a member of the Adjunct Faculty of Columbia Law School, where he teaches a class on "International Banking and Finance: the challenges”. Georges holds a Doctorate in Law and is Licentiate in Economics from the Catholic University of Louvain. He has lectured at that university, as well as at the College of Europe in Bruges. He served as a Special Advisor of the Program on International Financial Systems of Harvard Law School. He published The betrayal of Finance: Twelve reforms to restore confidence (2011), International Finance Regulation: The Quest for Financial Stability (2014), and his first mystery novel in the world of Asian Finance: The Flying Dragon (2015). Prior to founding Galileo, Georges Ugeux joined the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in September 1996, as Group Executive Vice President, International & Research. He built and managed the NYSE’s International Group and, during his tenure, spearheaded the listing of 308 companies from 43 countries, out of the 470 non-US companies listed on the NYSE with an aggregate value of $ 2.7 trillion. During that same period, the NYSE’s international trading moved from 40 to 140 million shares a day. Georges Ugeux, a 72-year old Belgian and US national, began his career in 1970 at Société Générale de Banque (currently BNP Paribas Fortis), the leading Belgian bank, where he became General Manager of the investment banking and trust division. His career moved him to London in 1985, as Managing Director of Morgan Stanley’s Mergers and Acquisitions department. In 1988, he was appointed Group Finance Director of Société Générale de Belgique, the leading Belgian industrial and financial conglomerate owned by Engie (formerly GDF Suez). In 1992, he became President and Managing Director of Kidder, Peabody & Co, Europe, while serving as a member of the Management Committee and the Board of Directors of Kidder, Peabody & Co. He was put in charge of the firm’s global origination efforts. In that capacity, he was also a member of the European Corporate Executive Council of General Electric. From 1995 until joining the NYSE, Georges Ugeux served as President of the European Investment Fund (EIF), a €2 billion public-private partnership created by the European Union at the Edinburgh Summit. He also chaired the Kingdom of Belgium’s Privatization Commission, at the time of Belgacom’s privatization. Georges Ugeux is a director of AXA Tian Ping Property & Casualty, a joint venture insurance company in Shanghai. He is a Director of Avant Corporation, a Japanese fintech company. He sits on the International Advisory Boards of Guangzhou Municipal Board for International Investment, the Vlerick Leuven Gent Management School, the Emerging Market Institute of Cornell University, Oxford Analytica, APCO worldwide and Polyfinances, the financial part of Montreal Polytechnique. He is a member of the investment committee of the Missionary Sisters of Our Lady for Africa and on the finance committee of the Belgian American Educational Foundation.