Gaëtan Hannecart joined Matexi in 1994 and as its CEO lead the 20-fold
growth of Matexi over a period of 27 years. In May 2021 Gaëtan
relinquished the role of CEO but continues to serve Matexi as board
member and Chairman of the Investment & Finance Committees.
Established after World War II Matexi grew from a small land parceling
business into Belgium’s largest privately held real estate developer with
approximately 450 € mio in annual revenue. At the heart of this growth is a
strong purpose “Everybody deserves a great place to live” on socially and
environmentally responsible urban regeneration and neighbourhood
improvement projects.
Over the years Matexi evolved from a family operated business into a
professionally managed company with a strong board of directors and more
than 300 highly qualified professionals, based either at the headquarters in
Waregem or in the 12 regional offices covering Belgium, the Grand-Duchy
of Luxemburg and Poland.
Together those professionals currently work on more than 500 real estate
projects ranging in size from a few housing units up to very large urban
reconversions like the Antwerp Tower and the Military Hospital in Antwerp,
Quartier Bleu in Hasselt, Lamot in Mechelen, Kouter and the
Leopoldskazerne in Gent, Leopold Views in Evere or Kolska in Warsaw. In
doing so Matexi generates indirect employment for approximately 3.000
workers on a daily basis.
Gaëtan Hannecart is the non-executive and independent chairman of
Financière de Tubize (the publicly listed controlling shareholder of biopharma
company UCB), independent board member of Group Louis
Delhaize (a large retailer), N-Side (a scale-up in the field of mathematical
optimization) and a non-executive board member of SIPEF (a publicly listed
agribusiness operating in Indonesia, Papua New Guinea and Ivory Coast).
Formerly Gaëtan Hannecart served on the boards of Home Invest Belgium
(Residential REIT), Real Dolmen (publicly listed ICT company) and of
Cofinimmo (Commercial REIT).
Gaëtan Hannecart has been actively engaged in the not-for-profit sector for
more than two decades: as co-founder and current chairman of YouthStart
(an organization that trained over 10.000 underprivileged youth in
entrepreneurial attitudes); as co-founder and non-executive director of
Itinera Institute (an independent think-thank); as the current chairman of
Guberna (the Belgian Institute for Corporate Governance) and for 5 years
as a member of the HBS Alumni Board.
Gaëtan Hannecart holds a MSc. in Mechanical engineering and
manufacturing management from the Catholic University of Leuven
(1988) and an MBA from Harvard Business School (1994).
Gaëtan has been married to Bénédicte Vande Vyvere for almost 30
years, is the father of 4 daughters and together they like to practice
diverse sports, travel and enjoy the remote outdoors.
Thomas Schepens staat sinds 2003 aan het hoofd van de eenheid macroprudentieel toezicht van de Nationale Bank van België. Voor hij in 1999 bij de NBB in dienst trad, werkte hij respectievelijk als econoom en hoofdeconoom in de economische studiedienst en de afdeling vermogensbeheer van Paribas Bank België en Artesia Bank. Hij is lid van verschillende internationale overleg- en beleidsorganen en was gedurende vijf jaar co-voorzitter van de permanente werkgroepen macroprudentiële analyse van de Europese Centrale Bank en de European Systemic Risk Board in Frankfurt.
Selien De Schryder is professor Empirische Macro-economie in de vakgroep Economie van de Universiteit Gent sinds oktober 2017. Mijn onderzoeksinteresse gaat uit naar monetair, macroprudentieel en budgettair beleid en de impact van die beleidsacties op de macro-economische omgeving, vnl. economische groei, inflatie en economische welvaart meer algemeen. Momenteel focust mijn onderzoek zich onder andere op de effecten van het macroprudentieel beleid in België op de huizenprijzen.
