Speaker Biography
Douglas van den Berghe
Founder and CEO, NxT Zones
Douglas van den Berghe (PhD) is a global speaker and expert on FDI, SEZs, corporate international strategy and innovation. He is the CEO of NxtZones and FDI 4.0: a global integrated network of economic zones and industrial parks converged around sustainability and the SDGs and operating in key Industry 4.0 sectors.
He was the founder and CEO of a FDI advisory firm (ICA – Investment Consulting Associates) and two technology ventures which were all acquired over the past couple of years. He previously held positions at UNCTAD and EY. As a management consultant, he has assisted many corporate clients in successfully implementing their global investment strategies, optimizing their global supply chains and has created more than 100,000 jobs and generated more than US$ 2 billion in FDI across the world.
He has been an advisor to many governments in successfully developing FDI policies for economic development increasing the competitiveness of countries and is currently advising a number of countries on their future FDI 4.0 strategies and visions and regularly publishes articles on FDI, incentives, SEZ and IPAs. Some of his corporate clients Douglas has worked for include: Shell, Philips, Electrolux, HB Fuller, Appvion, John Deere, Johnson Controls, Knowles, Appnovation Technologies, and ING.
He is the founder of the FDI training Academy FDIexecutive™. Douglas holds a PhD in Business Administration from Erasmus University Rotterdam.
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