Ugeux goes global with advice

Like the namesake of his new firm, Galileo Global Advisors, Georges Ugeux is looking to upend conventional wisdom.

Ugeux recently left the New York Stock Exchange, where he had been group executive vice president in charge of international business, with a simple goal in mind. “I want to reinvent the advisory business. No one knows who to trust anymore,” says Ugeux, who has seen the business from both sides.

A veteran banker who worked at Morgan Stanley before heading Kidder, Peabody Europe, Ugeux has also been a client of Wall Street, first as group finance director of Société Générale de Belgique in the late 1980s and then as president of the European Investment Fund and chairman of Belgium’s Privatization Commission. At the NYSE, Ugeux engineered a successful drive that saw 308 companies from 43 countries list since 1996, the year he joined.

Ugeux’s New Yorkbased business will focus on global companies and government entities, particularly in emerging economies. “Advisory today is another name for selling something else,” says Ugeux. As a result, Galileo won’t provide execution services for global transactions; instead, it will provide independent advice on the selection and monitoring of professional advisers, from bankers to lawyers, auditors to consultants.

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