Frederik Brys
Born in 1974 in Belgium, Frederik Brys grew up at the countryside, in probably the best region for small-game shooting that Belgium has to offer, namely in the French-speaking province of Hainaut, close to the border with France. His passion for horseback riding introduced him to the local small-game-shooting community where he wandered for countless hours in pursuit of partridges and pheasants—first as a beater and gunbearer and then at the legal age of eighteen as a hunter.
While obtaining his master’s degrees in law (Catholic University of Leuven) and finance (Vlerick Business School), he became an avid collector of worldwide hunting books. He spent many happy hours in antiquarian bookshops collecting rare and out-of-print European hunting books before the Internet revolutionized that whole business.
Back in the 1990s it was through his passion for reading hunting books that he came across the first hunting books edited in post-Cold War Russia and the CIS. Stunned by these great new stories on hunting wild sheep and ibexes in this new Russian era, he immediately started learning Russian, his fifth language, so as to gain access to this new subgenre of hunting literature and to better get to know that magnificent Euro-Asian continent. After graduating from law school, he applied to work for a newly created Russian branch of a top French law firm in Moscow; this gave him the opportunity to travel and to hunt there.
Following his first professional experience in Moscow, Frederik received the prestigious Prince Albertfund Award, which was bestowed on him by the King Baudouin Foundation. This grant gave him the opportunity to work (and thus to hunt!) in the former Czechoslovakia.
After his experience in Czechoslovakia, he decided to return to Belgium in order to expand the family business, instead of working for other big international firms or companies abroad. After selling his first company, Frederik became a full-time investor in small and midsize companies, international hunter, and collector of fine hunting books and vintage taxidermy, mainly from Rowland Ward and Van Ingen & Van Ingen.
Engaged in promoting the legacy of the late Rowland Ward—who was the first to publish what has become THE standard for a record book—Frederik has lately been appointed official measurer and member of the Advisory Board of Rowland Ward.
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