About us

The Belgium Alumni Chapter remains one of the largest and most active alumni communities outside Chicago. We represent more than 400 University of Chicago alumni, who live and/or work in Belgium. The majority of our alumni, i.e. some 75% hold an MBA degree from the Graduate School of Business (Chicago Booth). Amongst our members are graduates from the campus, evening and executive programs in Chicago, and from the executive programs in London and Singapore. Some 12% of our alumni obtained a Law degree at the University of Chicago. The other 13% come from different schools such as Economics, Egyptian Archeology, Linguistics, Sociology, Chemistry, Biology and Medicine.

We are incorporated according to Belgian Law as a not-for-profit organization. We participate in the Fulbright program and the King Baudouin Foundation in Belgium to promote educational exchanges between our country and the United States.

You may know us Belgians from the best party on campus, the Belgian Halloween Party, which is a classic ever since it's inception in October 1992! Our beers may be nasty to some of you, but we're good at heart as well: we were the first alumni club to donate to the fund raising campaign of the GSB, an example that has been followed by other clubs to our greatest joy.

We are very proud that our Belgian Universities of Leuven and Louvain-La-Neuve have developed a long-standing relationship with Chicago through their exchange programs. In 2005, we will celebrate the 40th anniversary of our collaboration!

We are also the first club to have introduced the Business Forecast Luncheon outside the United States. In Belgium, we do it over dinner, cultural difference obliges- and hence we call it the Business Forecast Dinner. In addition to this event, we organize several other activities per year, with a focus on insightful events that contribute to the standing and reputation of The University of Chicago.

We maintain close ties with other European alumni chapters, such as the Chicago Booth alumni groups in The Netherlands, the UK, France and Spain, and with the Belgian alumni associations of other top US and European business schools.