Michael Bussey joined HSBC in 1980 as an international executive and spent over twenty years as an expatriate in a variety of senior roles. During that period he lived and worked in Asia, the Middle East, Africa, North America and the UK. His last role with HSBC was CEO HSBC Private Banking EMEA. From 2001, Michael decided to remain in UK and specialise in Private Banking and Wealth Management. After a short period with Schroders, he was appointed CEO Private Banking and Trust at NM Rothschild. His last executive role was as CEO of Arbuthnot Latham & Co. In 2011 Michael began his “portfolio” career by chairing UK Wealth Management which was a Leeds based IFA owned by Duke Street Capital. A successful exit was achieved in 2014 by way of a trade sale. He is chairman of Gentoo Genie Ltd, an award winning FCA regulated business which has created a new financing structure for first time home buyers, and a chairman and non-executive director of Credit Suisse (UK) Ltd, where he also chairs the Remuneration and Nominations Committee.
Archives: Personnel
Frederic Hannequart
Frederic Hannequart has more than 35 years experience in financial services, both banking and securities services. He started his career with Bank Brussels Lambert, where he held various positions in Asia and Europe. He then moved to Euroclear, where he was an executive Board member for more than 15 years, first as chief financial officer, then as chief business officer. Besides his Board membership of MeDirect, he is also an independent board member of AXA Belgium, and a consular judge in the Commercial Court of Brussels. He holds Master’s degrees in Law (Leuven), Economics (Louvain-la-Neuve) and Business Administration (Cornell University)
John Zarb
John Zarb retired from his role as partner at PwC at the end of 2014 after a career spanning over 40 years spent within the audit and advisory practices of the firm. He is a past president of the Malta Institute of Accountants, and served for a number of years on the Accountancy Board and as Malta’s representative on the EU Accounting Regulatory Committee. John is currently the chairman of PG plc, a board member and chairman of the audit committee of Tumas Investments plc and a director of Foster Clark Products Limited. He joined the board of MeDirect as an independent non-executive director.
Jean-Claude Maher
Jean-Claude Maher has more than 29 years of experience in Banking. He joined Deutsche Bank AG in 1994 where he held various roles in Research, Corporate Banking, Transaction Banking, Private Banking and Country Management. Throughout his career he held managerial positions on country, regional and global levels. Since 2014 he served as Country Chief Operating Officer and Branch Manager of Deutsche Bank in Belgium. Jean-Claude holds a master’s degree in Economics and Political Sciences from the University of Cologne, Germany.
Kim Van de Velden
Kim Van de Velden started her career as a lawyer by working for international law firms. She also worked as a tax consultant for the Big Four and has over 15 years of experience in providing advice and assisting (financial services) companies with their legal and tax affairs. She has acquired extensive knowledge in M&A transactions and litigation.
She holds a Master’s in law (LLM) from the Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB) and a Master in Tax Management from the Solvay Brussels School of Economics & Management. She is also a guest lecturer in tax law at the Louvain School of Management (LSM) since 2020 and a teaching assistant at the Université Catholique de Louvain (UCL) since 2012.
She is an accredited in-house counsel and member of the Belgian Institute of in-house counsels (IBJ-IJE).
Bruno Ceysens
Bruno Ceysens joined MeDirect in 2020 but started his career in the financial industry in 2002 joining Kredietbank Luxembourg (now Quintet Private Banking) in Monaco as junior portfolio manager. He then joined Dexia Asset Management (now Candriam) in 2004 before working for Accenture on the implementation of MiFID I in the Private Banking department of a major Belgian bank. After spending more than 3 years in a “wealth management boutique” in Luxembourg (Qualion Finance), Bruno joined Bank Degroof (now Bank Degroof Petercam) in 2011 as member of the Compliance Department where he has acquired extensive experience in all areas of Compliance while being a central contact point for the regulators. Bruno holds a Degree in economics of the Catholic University of Louvain, has completed all three levels of the CFA and successfully passed the Febelfin Certified Compliance Officer exam.
Isabelle Menezes
Isabelle has been working in the banking industry for the last 23 years. She started her career in 1999 and spent 13 years within the Dexia Group, first within Dexia Bank and then within the Holding company. She has held various operational functions and throughout her different roles, has gained broad managerial experience. She then joined the Group Internal Audit function where she gained international experience as Internal Auditor, auditing a wide-range of operational and strategic processes. She later took on the management of a part of the Internal Audit team within the Bank, focused on Retail and Commercial Banking. From 2010 to 2012, she spent couple of years at Group Strategic Planning and Control as Head of Cost and Project Control before joining Triodos Bank as Internal Auditor, responsible for the Belgian Branch. As part of an integrated Audit Function, she participated in a number of international assignments as well. Between 2016 and 2021, she joined the Business Lending department and managed the Business Banking Operations team, mainly in charge of process improvements, projects and Credit administration. Isabelle joined MeDirect Bank SA in February 2022 as Head of Internal Audit (pending regulatory approval).
Jean-Claude Maher
Jean-Claude Maher has more than 29 years of experience in Banking. He joined Deutsche Bank AG in 1994 where he held various roles in Research, Corporate Banking, Transaction Banking, Private Banking and Country Management. Throughout his career he held managerial positions on country, regional and global levels. Since 2014 he served as Country Chief Operating Officer and Branch Manager of Deutsche Bank in Belgium. Jean-Claude holds a master’s degree in Economics and Political Sciences from the University of Cologne, Germany.