#12Jean-Pol Bouharmont

His career at the company has moved with him across continents rather than staying in one place. Before BESIX, he spent time at the Belgian foundation contractor Franki, working on infrastructure projects across Europe. He then joined BESIX and, after roughly twelve years in Europe, relocated to Dubai, where he spent about two decades working up to Chief Operating Officer of the group's Middle East operations. In that role he had oversight of projects including the Burj Khalifa, hospital developments such as Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi, and a long list of airports, tunnels, bridges, and ports across the region.

From Dubai, Bouharmont moved to Australia after BESIX acquired a stake in the Brisbane-based contractor Watpac, first as COO and then as CEO of the combined BESIX Watpac business, a role that put him in charge of hospital, stadium, and transport projects across Australia and New Zealand. That stretch of his career also connected him to major sporting infrastructure work, including stadium upgrades tied to events like the Gold Coast Commonwealth Games.

BESIX itself was founded in Belgium in the early twentieth century and has grown into a multidisciplinary contracting group active across roughly two dozen countries, with tens of thousands of staff and operations spanning construction, real estate, concessions, and infrastructure investment. What started as a domestic Belgian builder now moves between very different markets, from dense urban towers in the Gulf to hospital and stadium work in Australia and New Zealand, alongside its long-standing base of projects across Europe and Africa.

Bouharmont's current role as Managing Director draws on the full span of that career: a technical grounding in engineering, direct project experience across the Middle East and Australia, and a working understanding of how a Belgian-founded contractor operates on markedly different continents at once. Having managed teams through very different regulatory and cultural environments, from Belgium to the UAE to Australia, his approach has generally leaned on close, hands-on involvement with the technical side of a project rather than managing purely from a distance.