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Lex van Dam

Dutch investment manager and writer

Lex van Dam is a prominent figure in the investment and finance world, known for his expertise in trading and his work with family offices. Here's an overview of his background and accomplishments:

Professional Career

Lex van Dam was born in June 1968 in Drachten, Netherlands.2 He studied econometrics and investments at the University of Groningen before embarking on a successful career in finance:

  • Goldman Sachs: Van Dam began his professional journey at Goldman Sachs in 1992, where he worked for a decade. He rose to become the head of the equities proprietary trading desk.2

  • GLG Partners: After Goldman Sachs, he managed funds at GLG, which was Europe's largest hedge fund at the time.2

  • Hampstead Capital LLP: Since 2007, van Dam has been a hedge fund manager at this London-based firm.2

  • Rinkelberg Capital: He currently sources deals for this family office, which manages wealth for the founders of TomTom NV.1

SFO Alliance

In May 2020, Lex van Dam founded SFO Alliance, an exclusive, invitation-only club for single-family offices.14 Key aspects of this venture include:

  • Purpose: The alliance aims to explore investment ideas and facilitate knowledge sharing among family offices.1

  • Growth: Since its inception, SFO Alliance has expanded to about 250 member firms globally, managing combined assets of at least $500 billion.1

  • Events: The organization hosts various events, covering topics such as credit, blockchain, real estate, and private equity deals.1

Other Ventures and Achievements

  • Television: Van Dam featured in a BBC2 series called "Million Dollar Traders" in 2009, where he invested $1 million to teach ordinary people about stock market trading.2

  • Author: He wrote a book titled "How to Make Money Trading" as a companion to the TV series.2

  • Trading Academy: In November 2010, he launched The Lex van Dam Trading Academy to teach people about stock market trading and investing.2

Lex van Dam's expertise in finance, particularly in the realm of family offices and investment strategies, has established him as a respected figure in the industry. His work with SFO Alliance continues to provide valuable networking and knowledge-sharing opportunities for some of the world's wealthiest families and their investment firms.3

Highlights

May 28 · linkedin

People often ask me how it is possible to within four years build a community with over 1100 single family office executives and principals of which 375 joined #SFOWeek 2024. The simple answer is that as an insider I understand the unique challenges and mindset of my peer group, and that Keith and I always try to optimise for the members, and not for anyone else including ourselves.

The SFO Week 2024  event score was 8.8 which is quite hard to believe as our members are not known for being fans of conferences in general. The feel of community and the energy of the crowd was really intense; people were not there to witness but they were there to actively help the event succeed.

What I would love is for the global community to come to London in May during SFO Week, and have a choice out of lots of events, some perhaps with the #SFOAlliance, and some independent of us. The goal is not commercial; all of us hanging out in what is possibly the greatest city in the world once a year just seems like an absolute riot to me!

I like to thank my partner Keith Johnston for being a great guy to work with, Alexandra Malvina W. for fantastic design and photography, Alex for being the backbone of the organisation, and Jackie and Nick and Hayley for their incredible work ethic and their great sense of humour. Also of course Corinne Vigreux who has been so wonderful to me for almost 20 years, and the Rinkelberg team led by Marc Slendebroek who have also been very supportive and patient with me!

Most of all thank you to the members for making the effort to moderate and actively participate, whilst incurring costs to fly in from all over the world; it means a lot and cannot be taken for granted.

In addition a few names to highlight with too many left out - Hagai M. Segal Eric Weinstein Evren Ucok Victoria Matthews Closer to Truth SpaceBuzz Ben Wallace Reed Jobs Mehmet B Katharina Iten, EMBA Fernanda Mendes Ninja Struye de Swielande Hervé Touchais Veronika Clarici-Fanfule Ana Guijarro Tanya Blazhko Greg Hutton Alastair Phillips Michael Benaim Anthony R Luis Amaro Daniel Leger Leah von Siemens Yifeng Amy Salzhauer Manuel Roumain Trish Botoff Linda Mack Morgan Earnest Kaysan Nikkhah Jesse Seligman 🏔

#SFOWeek2025 here we come, and apologies for not having had enough time to write a shorter post! Photography by Alexandra Malvina W.

Dec 11 · linkedin

We are not an event company optimised for the organisers; we are not a membership organisation asking for recurring membership fees. We know the difference between a real SFO and someone pretending to be one. 

We are a peer-to-peer community with continuous engagement all year round, and SFO Week brings together a larger group of SFO executives and principals than any other event that I know of. Not more than 10% of the attendees will be commercial partners to ensure the organisation can function all year round, all contributing high quality added-value content.

If you are interested in joining over 750 other executives and individuals of the largest SFOs, with the option of receiving the bi-weekly SFO Insider, please send me a direct message.

#SFO #SingleFamilyOffice #Community

Related Questions

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Lex van Dam
Lex van Dam, photo 1
Lex van Dam, photo 2
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Location

United Kingdom