Lode Beckers

Lode Beckers is an active board member and committee member of non-profit organizations: The Belgian Alpine Club CMBEL, Special Olympics Belgium, WWF Belgium, and the UIAA (Union Internationale des Associations Alpines). Beckers is also an international financier and banker who in 1996, after a 28-year corporate banking career with Citibank in 7 countries, founded LOBO N.V., an advisory and equity investment firm focusing on EU related strategic and organisational matters.Over the past eight years, trade and industry federations, governments, and leading corporations have called on Lode's expertise in assessing the impact of the European Single Market on business with European and transatlantic trade partners.While acting as a presenter and company director, Lode Beckers continued to be a board member of the American Chamber of Commerce in Belgium and of the Board of Trustees of the Chicago-based SITE Foundation. He also held teaching assignments at the Universities of Leuven, Paris X (Nanterre), and St. Petersburg (Russia).Lode obtained magna cum laude degrees in Law and Political Sciences from the University of Leuven. He is an alumni of Wharton's International Forum and holds an Advanced Management Program certification from INSEAD (Fr.). He is a member of the Global Council of the Thunderbird-Garvin School of International Management (Glendale, Ariz), and a Finance Council member for the AMA (American Management Association). In 2005, Lode is also acting as Senior Advisor Europe on behalf of the Philadelphia-headquartered Risk Management Association, the RMA. Currently, Lode is a member of the Board of Directors and of the Audit Committee of Fortis Bank N.V./S.A., the Belgian-Dutch banking and insurance group.Previous directorship responsibilities were assumed with Aquafin N.V., a government-owned water treatment company, and LRM (Limburgse Reconversie Maatschappij), a regional development company. Lode also served two terms on the board of directors of van Lanschot Bankiers Belgie, a private bank of Dutch origin.In his banking career Lode Beckers became known as a senior-level risk management expert and as a specialised industry banking expert for the construction & engineering industry (1978-1986) and the agribusiness & food industry (1990-1996). Corporate banking and staff assignments in New York, Paris, and London were alternated with general management responsibility for Citibank's operations in Belgium (1987-1996), Luxemburg, and the Netherlands (1984-1987).Lode speaks and writes in English, French, Dutch and German. He was born in 1940 in Maasmechelen (Belgium), is married to Monique Marmillion, and lives in Belgium and France. Since 1991, he is a member of the Belgian Alpine Club.