Stephanie de Wangen

French-American national with Belgian roots, born and raised in Spain and now based in Switzerland, Stephanie brings an international perspective shaped by more than 30 years of executive, advisory and family governance experience. She has lived and worked across Europe/UK, the United States, Russia and Africa.

Stephanie brings two complementary perspectives to the boardroom: stewardship and governance as a sixth-generation shareholder in a 160+-year-old family business, and leadership, growth and transformation through a 30-year executive and advisory career in the digital and technology sector.

Stephanie is a sixth-generation member of the founding family of Solvay SA and serves on the Family Shareholder Board/Council (Conseil des Actionnaires Familiaux).  Solvay SA is a Belgian-headquartered industrial chemicals group that, following its 2023 demerger, now comprises two separately listed companies: Solvay (SOLB.br) and Syensqo (SYENS.br). In this capacity, she contributes to shareholder stewardship and alignment across more than 2,500 family shareholders in Europe and the United States, supporting engagement around matters including Board nominations, remuneration, M&A and long-term ownership priorities. Her responsibilities also include strengthening multi-generational engagement and developing the family's NextGen talent ecosystem.

Alongside her family governance responsibilities, Stephanie has built a 30-year executive career focused on scaling high-growth organisations. She played a key role in the European expansion of Amazon, AOL and Excite during their formative growth stages, when each employed fewer than 100 people in the region. In her final year at Amazon, she delivered more than $200 million in incremental revenue across Europe. Most recently, she has been the longest-serving Partner at The Up Group, a leading Board advisory and digital and technology executive search firm, where she helped drive 11-fold revenue growth, culminating in two successful private equity transactions.

During her 15+ years with The Up Group, Stephanie has advised Boards, investors, CEOs and founders on growth, transformation and value creation across organisations ranging from investor-backed scale-ups to listed multinational companies. Her work has focused on helping Boards and leadership teams translate strategic priorities into leadership, organisational and succession agendas. Through this experience, she has developed deep insight into how successful organisations align strategy, leadership, governance and organisational capability to scale sustainably, navigate transformation and create long-term shareholder value.

Having worked with hundreds of Boards, investors, CEOs and leadership teams across different ownership structures, industries and stages of maturity, Stephanie has developed a broad perspective on the factors that enable organisations to scale successfully, navigate transformation and create sustainable long-term value. She brings particular expertise in family governance and stewardship, leadership and succession, growth and transformation, and international business, with experience spanning family-owned, investor-backed and publicly listed organisations.

Stephanie holds a BA from Trinity College (USA), a graduate certificate from Sciences Po (Paris), and a graduate certificate from Middlebury College (USA). She has completed IMD programmes in Mastering Board Governance (2024) and Family Business (2026).

She is a mother of two and enjoys photography, cultural and scenic travel, classical music, skiing and spending time in nature. She is a native English, French and Spanish speaker and understands elements of Portuguese, Italian and Russian.