Board of Directors

Baron Philippe Bodson (1944) - Chairman/Independent director

Baron Philippe Bodson holds a diploma of civil engineer (Université de Liège) and a Master Degree in Business Administration (MBA) in l'Insead. In 1977, Philippe Bodson joined Glaverbel where he was Managing Director from 1980 till 1989. As from 1989 till 1999, he was Managing Director of Tractebel and President of Electrabel and Distrigaz. From 1999 till 2003, he was senator in the Belgian Senate. At present, Philippe Bodson is President of the board of directors of Floridienne and Hamon, President of Free Fair Post Initiative (NGO), President of the board of directors of Exmar, member of the board of directors of AEI (Houston), Bluesky, Cobepa and advisor of Credit Suisse.


Nicolas Saverys (1958) - Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer

Nicolas Saverys is the CEO and Managing Director of Exmar, He has been involved in the family business of shipowning since graduating from the University of Ghent with a degree in economics in 1980. From that time he has been responsible for starting Exmar and then steering its development to its current position as one of the major gas shipowning companies. His current business responsibilities, in addition to shipping, include insurance brokerage, real estate, towage and salvage, ship management and aviation. For almost 20 years, Nicolas Saverys was Chairman of the Royal Belgian Shipowners Association and during this mandate he was the driving force behind the successful revamping of the national Belgian register which led to an unprecented growth and reflagging. He is also Chairman of the Flemish Ports Association and the Benelux Committee of Bureau Veritas. Furthermore, Nicolas Saverys is Director of NileDutch.


Leo Cappoen (1945)

Leo Cappoen graduated in Civil Engineering-Mechanics from the UCL (Belgium) in 1969. Mr. Cappoen joined the Boelwerf shipyard in 1971 as Project Manager for different projects amongst which the only Belgian built LNG tanker, the Methania.

In 1981, he became Technical Manager-Director of Exmar. As from 1991, after the take-over of the CMB Group, he became Technical Manager of all shipping activities of the Group, i.e. Bocimar for the bulkcarriers, CMBT for the liner ships, Euronav for the oil tankers and Exmar for the gas tankers. He resigned from this position end 1999. He started the offshore department with Exmar early 1997. From end 1999 until March 2002 he was Managing Director of Exmar Offshore (Lux). In 2002 he became Technical Advisor.

Mr. Cappoen is member of the Technical Committees of Bureau Veritas. He is a member of the board of Directors or Exmar nv.


Ludwig Criel (1951)

Ludwig Criel graduated from the University of Ghent with a degree in Applied Economic Sciences. He also holds a degree in Management (Vlerick School of Management).

In 1976 he joined Boelwerf as Project Manager. In 1983 he became Administrative Manager of Almabo. He held various management positions within the Almabo/Exmar Group and later became Chief Financial Officer of CMB. In 1999 he became Managing Director of the Wah Kwong Group in Hong Kong.

Ludwig Criel is chairman of De Persgroep, member of the Supervisory Board of De Persgroep Nederland, member of the board of Petercam and is a director of various subsidiaries of the CMB Group. He has been a director of CMB since 1991 and director of Euronav and Exmar since listing.

He is also a member of the board and Chairman of ASL Aviation Group Ltd.


Patrick De Brabandere (1959)

Patrick De Brabandere holds a degree in Applied Economic Sciences from UCL Louvain-la Neuve (Belgium). He started his career at the audit firm, Arthur Andersen. In 1987 he joined Almabo as Project Controller. He became Chief Financial Officer of CMB in 1998. In 2002 he was appointed director of CMB. After the split CMB/Exmar in 2003 he became director and chief financial officer of Exmar. Since 2008 he is Chief Operating Officer (COO) of Exmar. Patrick De Brabandere holds directorships in various Exmar Group companies as well as in Saverex NV.


François Gillet (1960) - Independent director

François Gillet is a Commercial Engineer from “Institut d'Administration et de Gestion (IAG)” at Université Catholique de Louvain (UCL) with a specialisation in Financial Management. Besides his training at IAG, he participated to various trainings including the Cepac program (ULB), the Advanced Management Program (INSEAD) and a tax training to the Ecole de Commerce Saint Louis. Since 1988 François Gillet works for the financial holding company Sofina. He operates as the Chief Investment Officer and acts as a member of the Executive committee. He is a board member of various companies including Exmar, Colruyt, Luxempart, Deceuninck, Codic International and Emakina.


Jens Ismar (1957) - Independent director

Jens Ismar is the Chief Executive Officer at Western Bulk, a Norwegian bulk shipping company with a commercially controlled fleet of about 100 ships, mostly focused in the Handymax segment. Prior, he was a Director at BW Gas, a gas marine transportation services provider that owned and operated LPG and LNG carriers. Mr. Ismar has over 25 years of experience working in different capacities in the oil and gas industry. Jens started his career as a broker assistant in Inge Steensland, before spending two years in New York as shipping department manager in G.D.O. Industries. From 1984 to 2001 he held various positions in Stemoco Shipping/ Lorentzen & Stemoco, where he from 1997 was Managing Director. Mr. Ismar has a Business Degree from Lund University, Sweden. He is Chairman of the Oslo Shipowners' Association.


Philippe van Marcke de Lummen (1944) - Independent director

Philippe van Marcke de Lummen holds a M.S. in Chemical Engineering from the Brussels University (1968) and a post graduate certificate in B.A. from the Ecole de Commerce Solvay (1981). He joined Tractebel in 1984 as Assistant to the Executive Director –International Subsidiaries, in Brussels and later as Vice President and then President of American Tractebel Corporation in New York. In 1996 Mr. van Marcke founded Tractebel Energy Marketing Inc. in Houston and developed it to become amongst the top 20 licensed power marketers in 1999.

In late 2000, he set up Tractebel LNG Ltd. in London, to coordinate Tractebel's LNG activities worldwide. As Special Advisor Philippe van Marcke advised Tractebel's general Management in all gas matters relevant to the group and coordinated the further development of Tractebel's natural gas strategy.

From 1990 to 1996, he was President of American Tractebel Corp.

From 2001 to 2002 he was President and CEO of Tractebel LNG Ltd. and President and CEO of Tractebel LNG Ltd. 2000-2001). He was Chairman of Tractebel LNG Trading from 2003-2005 and from 2003 to 2004 he was Special advisor to the president of the general Management – Tractebel SA, the energy division of SUEZ.

He is currently Director, Penn Virginia Corporation (NYSE:PVA) – President and Director of Universitas Ltd – Director of Exmar.



© Copyright european commission

Guy Verhofstadt (1953) - Independent director

Doctor of Law (1975)

National Chairman of Young VLD (1979)-1981, PVV (1982-1985 and 1989-1992); VLD (1992-1995); Minister of State (since 1995). National Chairman PVV (1997-1999); Interim National Chairman Open VLD (since 2009). Member of Ghent City Council (1976 till 1982 and from 2007 till 2009).

Member of the House of Representatives from 1978 till 1995 and Member of the Senate from 1995 till 1999.

Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for the Budget, Scientific Research and the Plan from 1985 till 1988.

Prime Minister from 1999 till 2008.

Vice-Chairman of the Supervisory Board of APG-Nederland (2009).

Grand Gordon of the Order of Leopold.

President of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe in the European Parliament (since 2009).


Baron Philippe Vlerick (1955)

Baron Philippe Vlerick graduated in philosophy from the University of Leuven in 1977. He also holds a diploma in law (Leuven – 1978), a MBA General Management (PUB) (Ghent, Vlerick School of Management in 1979) and a Master degree of Business Administration from Indiana University, Bloomington (USA – 1980).

He is Chairman and Managing Director of B.I.C. Carpets, Uco and other Vlerick Group Businesses. He is Chairman of Photo Hall Multimedia, HIFI International, Pentahold and BICC&I (Belgo-Indian Chamber of Commerce & Industry) and Vice-chairman of the KBC Group, KBL, Spector and Corelio. He is on the board of various companies, including Exmar, Besix, BMT, Etex, IVC, Corelio, L.V.D. Company and Concordia Textiles.


NV Saverex, represented by Pauline Saverys (1982)

Pauline Saverys graduated as Master in Psychology at the KUL (2006), with an internship in Credit Suisse New York at the Divisional Development Department and was involved in the different aspects of Human Resources, experiencing through extensive research on the various aspects of corporate and human development (High Potential/successful management), development of self-evaluation diagrams and Competency Models and Strategy Plans for the business.

She is author of a book on eating disorders that that will be published in the second semester of 2011.

In 2010 she created Renessence vzw, an organisation that attends to girls and boys suffering from eating disorders. Pauline has worked in that field extensively before starting up her own initiative.

Pauline Saverys is permanent representative for Saverex, Director of Exmar.

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