Reginald Vossen, CEO of Belgian business angels network BAN Flanders, has been appointed as the new chair of the Business Angels Network Europe Club (BAE Club), replacing Tanguy De La Fouchardière, who retired from this function in March 2022. Vossen aims to further build on the energy and trust that has been created within the group, while setting new ambitious goals.
The BAE Club, founded in 2013, is an association of 19 of the most leading angel networks around Europe and Canada, aiming to promote the best practices in the angel-market and foster cross border collaboration. Tanguy De La Fouchardière, former president of Paris Business Angels and of France Angels (the national federation representing angel investing in France) stewarded the Club’s activities during the two years of COVID, where he oversaw a rapid acceleration of online activities.
Most notably, Tanguy worked on transforming the Club from a networking and benchmarking group into a community that actively syndicates deals together. Together, the BAE Club members agreed to pitch and match cross border portfolio companies and business angels. This required buy-in and incentives that triggered everyone to commit. BAE Club achieved its first successes through 6 online e-pitches, 390 attendees and two cross border investments, a tremendous step towards creating more syndication in the European investment ecosystem.
De La Fouchardière says: "I am pleased with the progress we have made in creating a Club of Angels that is looking more and more to collaborate across European borders. I am happy that Reginald will continue to build on the foundations we have created together. I am confident he will improve the process we put in place, as he was involved in the Club from the beginning, and he is a real professional".
Reginald Vossen now takes the existing processes forward and will focus on increasing the number of international investments, and the promotion of the BAE Club within and beyond the existing participating countries.
Towards 2022 - 2023, he designed eight growth pillars, including activities to:
- enlarge the number of joining networks,
- incorporate a level playing field on professional standards,
- increase networking and shared knowledge,
- exchange best practices on models, schemes, operations, etc.
- promote bilateral cooperation and ecosystems,
- create bottom-up initiatives on the real needs of the networks,
- grow the number of cross border e-pitches, and
- develop high quality partnerships.
To facilitate these strategic guidelines, Reginald Vossen created a Steering Committee, composed by Carolin Plagmann (Germany), Malin Iulian Stefanescu (Romania), René Reijtenbagh (Netherlands) and Jan Debets (COO BAE).
Vossen says: "I know I have put forward an ambitious program to be realized in a very tight timeframe. However, I feel business angel networks find themselves at a strategic pivot point now, with a need to strengthen their market proposition amidst growing diversity in financing solutions for young companies, while keeping a secure eye on the quality these 19 selected networks each deliver in their home market.
With entrepreneurs and angels being more and more eager to expand internationally from the start, BAE Club is thé ideal place to create a cross border launchpad for these stakeholders".