In TRIBE we trust

We never aspired to becoming football players or artists ourselves, due to the clear absence of talent. Luckily we could exceed in other businesses, such as law, tax, finance, marketing and management. Destiny brought us together and we created TRIBE, a full service agency focusing on athletes, artists and authors. As an acknowledged consultancy firm with FIFA, FA and RBFA licenses, we are extremely well qualified in bringing the full range of services to our clients. Our agency expertise and collective experience allows us to deliver a high standard support for our clients. We are TRIBE, nice to meet you.

Michel Maus, Founding Partner

Michel built his professional career in taxation. After graduating from the Vrije Universiteit Brussel in 1992, he started his own independent law firm in Bruges, Belgium, focusing on tax law. In 1995 he started his academic career. He wrote a doctoral thesis on tax fraud and received his Phd in 2005. Since then, Michel became a tax law professor at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel and he teached at the Universiteit Gent and the Universiteit Antwerpen as well.

Over the years Michel advised federal, regional and local governments and professional organisations on matters of tax policy. Recently he participated in expert panels, who stipulated recommendations in how to reform the Belgian tax system for professional athletes and how to stimulate the art economy. Michel Maus is a frequently asked by national and international media to give an expert opinion on tax issues, especially in the field of tax fairness. He wrote several low profile books about taxation for a wide audience such as “Tax me if you can” and “Partycrasher”. In 2015 Michel Maus started a new boutique tax law firm, Bloom Law, which is in the meanwhile recommended for Belgium by Legal 500.

”After a professional career of more than 25 years in tax law, I thought it was time to have some real professional fun now in topics that really matter in life, such as sports, arts and literature.

Karl Dhont, Founding Partner

For over 12 years Karl was an eminent Prosecutor for the Ethics and Disciplinary Unit of UEFA (the Union of European Football Associations) in the fight against match-fixing and sports-fraud, and defended UEFA in many high profile court cases before CAS (Court of Arbitration for Sports, Lausanne) and the Disciplinary and Appeal Bodies of UEFA. In this function he led many fraud-investigations all over Europe and worked closely with law enforcing authorities all over the world.

He worked on several structural reforms of Belgian Football the last couple of years and published several much debated football reports since. Karl started his career in 1994 with SSP Intl. in London. In 1998, he moved to Lucca, Italy for over seven years to become head of the gaming division of the publicly listed company SNAI. He was one of the driving forces behind the extremely successful gaming operator MrBookmaker.com and has since set up several companies in Italy, Malta, UK, Gibraltar and Belgium. He has been an active investor since his return to the forests around Bruges, Belgium in 2006 and is on the board of several private companies. In 2008 he and two other partners founded the thriving Global Value Fund Tartaros in Luxemburg and he has been a fanatic pioneer in this field ever since. In 2015 he also became a member of the board of the Belgian National Lottery. In June 2019 he was awarded a Fellowship in Law and Criminology by the Brussels University (VUB), the Academy’s highest award. Karl has been an ardent football fan ever since he was a kid and was also the co-author of ‘Stamnummer 3’, one of Belgium’s best-selling football books ever. He is a fanatic collector of contemporary art and works in an office stacked with books about history, politics, finance and of course football.

”My longlife journey inside the world of sports and art convinced me that there is another path to success, through integrity and decency.

Koen Heynssens, Founding Partner

Together with Karl Dhont, Koen founded Tribe Executive Search to contribute to the professionalisation of sports clubs and organisations.

Based in Tribe’s Brussels office, Koen builds out leadership teams across EMEA’s entertainment and sports ecosystem. He partners with clubs and organisations at all stages, from innovative start-ups to federations and legendary football clubs undergoing critical transformations.

Koen began his executive search career with Russell Reynolds Associates, where he conducted numerous international leadership searches out of Brussels and London. He crafted his unique skill set by working with high-level executives on more than 150 searches.

Koen holds a Master of Political Sciences degree from Ghent University and a Certificat d’Etudes Politiques from Sciences Po Aix.

”Building my business on the three core Olympic values of respect, friendship and excellence convinced me to offer my executive search expertise in the world of sports.