Johan Beerlandt
Executive Chairman of the Board of Directors - BESIX Group
Johan Beerlandt joined the BESIX Group in 1974, as junior engineer at the BESIX Brussels headquarters. In 1975 he left Belgium to start his international career.
He started in the United Arab Emirates where he participated and led several construction projects.
In 1981, he moved to Cameroon to initially manage a local construction company. Very soon after settling he created a local BESIX subsidiary in Cameroon, West Africa, which he developed and managed for 7 years.
In 1988 he returned to the Middle East, where he assumed the management of the ailing subsidiary of BESIX.
In 1994 when returning to the BESIX Group headquarters in Brussels, he was nominated general manager, in charge of the international construction operations. In 1998, he became CEO of all the contracting activities of the BESIX Group worldwide.
The activities, limited to the field of construction were developed not only in the Benelux but as well in France, Eastern Europe, Middle East, Africa, Caribbean, etc.
In 2004 he prevented the BESIX Group (then named SBB for “Société belge de béton”) being sold off to a foreign group by setting up a Leveraged Management Buy Out of the holding company. He was not only the initiator, but he also took a major personal stake.
He then became Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director of BESIX Group, as well Chairman of BESIX and Chairman of the Executive Board of BESIX. Since 2004, the business has grown from a traditional civil and building construction company to a multidisciplinary organization incorporating project development, environmental activities, road construction, concessions, etc. Through the recurrent profitability the turnover grew from 750 million Euro to around 2,5 billion Euro.
The business further expanded to Australia.
On 3 April 2017, Johan Beerlandt handed over his position of CEO to his successor, and was nominated Chairman of the Board of BESIX Group.