François Rancourt

François is the founder, senior partner and managing director of Borealys Advisory. He is an SME financing specialist known for his rigor, strategic sense and ability to build strong institutions. With twenty years of experience in financial services and management, thirteen of them devoted to lending to micro, small and medium-sized enterprises, he supports banks, microfinance institutions and businesses in Canada and in more than fifteen countries in Africa, Latin America and Asia.

Holding a master’s degree in administration, with a concentration in cooperative management and governance, from the Université de Sherbrooke, and a bachelor’s degree in international development studies from Dalhousie University, François first cut his teeth as an entrepreneur. He founded and ran two cooperatives in Québec, including an agricultural business bringing together some thirty producers and around ten employees. There he managed finance, human resources, marketing and operations.

For seven years, as an account manager at Desjardins Group, he built and managed a CAD 45 million portfolio across some one hundred business clients. He handled business development, financial analysis, financing structuring and credit risk monitoring, from negotiation through to closing.

He then served as deputy managing director and head of credit at the Centre Financier aux Entrepreneurs (CFE) in Tunisia, a newly created microfinance institution operated by Développement international Desjardins and funded by Global Affairs Canada. In four years, the institution grew from 2 to 230 employees and 11 branches, with 5,000 active borrowers and a TND 40 million portfolio among the lowest-risk in the market. He chaired the credit committee, set up the risk management function and internal control, helped raise TND 12 million in equity and supervised some thirty managers.

Since then, he has carried out technical assistance and advisory mandates for central banks, development banks, commercial banks, microfinance institutions and regional organizations. These mandates are funded by the EIB, KfW, IFC, FMO, GIZ and the European Union, and delivered with partners such as the Frankfurt School of Finance & Management, GFA, GOPA and ECORYS. He has also worked with fund managers and development finance institutions on due diligence processes.

His skills cover SME strategy and business models, credit policies and procedures, product design, credit line deployment, blended finance, risk-sharing mechanisms and portfolio guarantees, risk management and internal control, as well as financial modeling and business plans. He has also supported the implementation of core banking systems, CRM and ERP. He works in French and English.

A lecturer at the Frankfurt School of Finance & Management in Germany, he has also taught at the master’s level at the Université de Sherbrooke’s Faculty of Administration. A few years ago, he was named one of the 100 leaders of the Estrie region.

In short, François Rancourt brings financial institutions and SMEs a rare perspective: that of a professional who has been an entrepreneur, a banker and an institution builder. He knows what it takes for a bank to lend, and what it takes for a business to deserve that loan.