Christian Leysen

Born August 4th, 1954.

Commercial engineer – Masters’ degree in Law (Brussels University, 1976).

He started his career in 1976 with Arthur Andersen & Co., the international audit and consulting company. In 1981 he joined GB Inno BM, the largest Belgian retail group, where he was in charge of the Maxi division’s logistics and organization.

In 1984, he founded Xylos, an information technology service provider and developed it into a company employing around 200 people in offices in Antwerp and Brussels.

In 1989 he took over daily management of Ahlers, an Antwerp-based shipping company and made it a logistical and maritime service provider with presence in 20 countries in Europe, CIS and Asia.

In 1994, he brought Ahlers back into private ownership through a buy-out operation of Stinnes AG (Mulheim) and became Chairman of the Board.

Beside its activities in transportation and information technology, the AXE-group is also active as an investor via AXE Investments.

He is Chairman of the Antwerp Management School (AMS). He is a founding member and was the first chairman of ADM (a cluster of about 150 IT related companies) and of The Shift, a Belgian sustainability network.

He is a member of the board of a.o. Agidens and VRT (a public broadcasting company).