Jacques van Ypersele de Strihou
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jacques van Ypersele de Strihou (b. 5 December 1936), is the Principal Private Secretary to the King of Belgium. When Albert II of Belgium succeeded his brother Baudouin I of Belgium, he kept his private secretary, so Jacques van Ypersele de Strihou already served two kings. Together with Jan Willems, Marshal of the Royal Household, he represents the King at the board of the King Baudouin Foundation.
Jacques van Ypersele de Strihou is a French-speaking Christian Democrat. He is a son of Henry van Ypersele, an engineer who worked for the business group of the late Baron Empain. Henry van Ypersele was the brother of Baron Adelin van Ypersele de Strihou and himself administrator of Royale Belge, the predecessor of Axa. His daughter, Nathalie van Ypersele de Strihou, is a journalist at the business magazine Trends Tendances.
Contents |
[edit] Education
Jacques van Ypersele went to school at the Jesuit college Saint-Michel of Brussels. He studies literature at the University of Notre-Dame de la Paix in Namur and in addition he studied law and economy at the Universite Catholique de Louvain (Louvain). He is an assistant at the Lovanium university of Kinshasa for some months, after which he goes to Yale University, on a NATO-scholarship, where he obtains a PhD in economics under Richard Cooper[1].
[edit] Career
In Washington, D.C. he meets professor Robert Triffin, of the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Robert Triffin, his mentor, provides him with a job at the IMF in Washington, D.C. and later in 1969 at Jakarta (Indonesia). In Washington D.C. at the IMF, he shared a room, as a junior economist, with Wim Duisenberg, the later President of the European Central Bank. Due to his talent, he acquires international fame in a sort time. State leaders, such as the German chancellor Helmut Schmidt and the French president Valéry Giscard d'Estaing praize his expertise on economics and finance. In the early seventies he returns to Belgium, where he joins the Empain-Group, and becomes Vice-President of Electrorail. In 1972 he becomes an advisor at the cabinet of André Vlerick. He becomes consultant of three successive Belgian Ministers for Finance: Willy De Clercq, Gaston Geens , and Robert Vandeputte. In 1978 he becomes (vice-) Chief of Cabinet of Leo Tindemans, and later also of Paul Vanden Boeynants, and Wilfried Martens. In the meantime he teaches at the Université Catholique de Louvain (UCL) and the Institut Catholique des Hautes Etudes Commerciales (ICHEC) in Brussels. At the end of the 1970s, he was President of the Monetary Committee of the European Union, and played a particularly important role in the design and establishment of the European Monetary System (EMS). In 1981, together with Fons Verplaetse, he is one of the architects of the devaluation of the Belgian Franc, in order to stimulate the Belgian economy. In 1983, he succeeded Jean-Marie Piret and becomes principal private secretary of Baudouin I of Belgium, and later also of his brother Albert II of Belgium. Jacques van Ypersele de Strihou is a member of the montary committee of the European Union, and also works for the IMF and the Worldbank as a financial expert.
[edit] References
- ^ Jacques van Ypersele de Strihou, Sharing the Defense Burden Among Western Allies, The Review of Economics and Statistics, Vol. 49, No. 4 (Nov., 1967), pp. 527-536 (part of his Ph.D. dissertation)
[edit] Source
- King Baudouin Foundation (press release)
- Gui Polspoel, Pol Van den Driessche, Koning en onderkoning. Over de invloed van het Hof en de macht van Jacques van Ypersele de Strihou, Leuven, Van Halewyck, 2001
- Willem F Duisenberg: Congratulatory speech at the National Bank of Belgium’s 150th anniversary
This Belgian biographical article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.
