Forerun Inc.

MIT Industrial Performance Center

CRECIS (Center for Research in Entrepreneurial Change and innovative Strategies) of the Catholic University of Louvain

In 1975, private investor and financial expert Jean-Jacques Degroof began studying business administration at the Catholic University of Louvain in Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium. After earning a Bachelor’s degree, Jean-Jacques Degroof started graduate courses through the University’s Institute of Labor Sciences. Graduating summa cum laude in 1983, he traveled to New York City to study banking techniques through such prestigious financial corporations as JP Morgan, Brown Brothers Harriman, and the European American Bank. He took the skills he learned at these institutions back to Brussels and within a few years began working as a Private Banking Manager for Banque Degroof. In this position, Jean-Jacques Degroof oversaw client portfolio management, as well as product development and estate planning. Additionally, Jean-Jacques Degroof created the Degroof Global Isis, Belgium’s first balanced fund. 

  Jean-Jacques Degroof worked for Banque Degroof for seven years before leaving to continue his education in the United States. Enrolling at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s (MIT) Sloan School of Management in Cambridge, he studied for a Master’s degree and then earned a doctorate in Management in 2002. Jean-Jacques Degroof then began working for MIT as a researcher, studying local innovation systems and participating in a study titled “benchmarking innovation” in collaboration with Cambridge University. When he finished this work, Jean-Jacques Degroof began teaching courses and giving lectures at several respected schools throughout Europe, including the Vlerick Leuven Gent Management School in Belgium, the École des Mines, and the Audencia Nantes School of Management, both in France. Most recently, he served as a board member for several investment groups and technology providers, including Ventos S.A. in Luxembourg; Dbscape S.A. in Brussels; and Forerun, Inc., in Waltham, Massachusetts. 

Jean-Jacques Degroof currently resides in Brussels and enjoys reading and playing tennis. Multilingual, he fluently speaks French, English, Dutch, and Italian.

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