I started my working life with Shell first as a chemical engineer at the laboratories in Amsterdam, the Netherlands (fundamental research) and Rijswijk (tertiary oil recovery). Thereafter I moved to the central offices of Shell in The Hague after receiving my law and finance degree. In the evenings I taught corporate finance for MBA students at Webster University in Leyden.

I left Shell after 15 years to join the predecessor of Loyens & Loeff as a senior partner in banking and finance. Loyens & Loeff is a Dutch based law and tax firm with offices in varoius places in the world. My area of expertise was structured finance. During my time with Loyens & Loeff I taught corporate finance at the University of Amsterdam for postgraduates.

In 2006 I retired from the firm and started my own legal consultancy firm. I was involved as an advisor to litigators with respect to various interest rate derivative instruments which were sold by Dutch banks to SME’s, the majority of which had no idea what they were buying. This became cristal clear with the 2007–2008 financial crisis. In 2017 I initiated a class action against four major shareholders of a German bank who defaulted on their financial obligation to fund the bank with additional capital to the detriment of the minority shareholders.

In 2008 I met my current wife in Cartagena de Indias, Colombia. She is Colombian by birth, but also holds the US nationality. In 2010 we moved from Greenwich (CT) USA to Bogotá D.C., Colombia where she joined the family-owned catering company as logistic manager. After living for 7 years in Bogotá we moved to Cartagena de Indias. In March 2020 COVID-19 hit Colombia and were forced in a total lockdown.

To make the most out of the lock down, I started studying computer science on a remote basis. With the additional skills acquired, I developed various applications such as automatic stock trading, stock screening and last but not least a model to detect breast cancer using artificial intelligence. I have made this model available to Colombian radiologists.

After the lockdown was lifted by the Colombian government, we decided to move house again as Cartagena’s tourist market went out of control and crime rate started rising. We now live and work in a tiny village called Pueblo Tapao. This is one of the villages in the department of Quindio known for its coffee, plantain and pineapple plantations.

The backgroud picture you see is Cocora Valley. The Cocora Valley is a valley in Quindío. It is located in the Central Cordillera of the Andean mountains. "Cocora" was the name of a Quimbayan princess, daughter of the local chief Acaime, and means "star of water". Cocora Valley is famous for its wax palm trees.

If you want to get in touch with me, just click my name in the footer. This will take you to my LinkedIn page.