Alexander De Croo

Alexander De Croo (born 3 November 1975) is a Flemish liberal politician, economist and businessman. Rising to political fame as the son of the prominent politician Herman De Croo, he currently holds the office of Deputy Prime Minister of Belgium and Minister of Development Cooperation, Digital Agenda, Telecom and Postal Services. From 2009 until 2012, he was party leader of (Open Flemish Liberals and Democrats (Open VLD).

Alexander De Croo is the son of former Belgian minister and president of the Chamber of Representatives Herman De Croo. In 1998, he graduated in Business Engineering at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel. He attended Northwestern University in Chicago in 2002 to complete an MBA at the Kellogg School of Management.

Before his political career, Alexander De Croo became a project leader of The Boston Consulting Group in 1999. Starting from 2006, he founded a new company called Darts-ip specialized in providing service to Intellectual Property professionals.

In 2009, he participated for the first time in politics with the 2009 European elections. He received 47.779 preference votes while being positioned tenth on the party ballot. During the elections for the Senate in 2010, he obtained 301.917 preference votes, the third most in the Dutch-speaking constituency.

On 26 October 2009, he became a candidate for the presidency of his political party Open VLD to succeed the transitional president Guy Verhofstadt. He chose Vincent Van Quickenborne and Patricia Ceysens as his running mates to compete against Marino Keulen and Gwendolyn Rutten. On 12 December 2009, he was elected president in the second round with 11.676 votes. Marino Keulen received 9.614 votes. His election is remarkable because he does not have any previous experience practicing a political mandate.

Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Pensions

Alexander De Croo succeeded Vincent Van Quickenborne in the Di Rupo Government as Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Pensions on October 22, 2012. Van Quickenborne resigned to become mayor of Kortrijk. Guy Verhofstadt was appointed transitional party president before Gwendolyn Rutten was elected as the new chairwoman of Open VLD.

Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Development Cooperation, Digital Agenda, Telecom and Postal Services

In the Michel Government, which took office on October 11, 2014 De Croo holds the office of Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Development Cooperation, Digital Agenda, Telecom and Postal Services.

In 2013, De Croo was appointed Vice Chairman of the World Economic Forum Global Agenda Council on Ageing. The goal of the Council is to ensure the challenges of a global ageing population are understood and tackled.