Founded by Xavier Buck in 2002, EuroDNS is a low-profile yet vital player in the digital economy. The company operates at the very heart of the digital world: online identities. Specialising in the registration and management of domain names, it has established itself as a key intermediary between businesses and global registries, managing over a million domain names and operating on an international scale. 
Beyond its core business, EuroDNS has expanded into areas that have become increasingly critical: cybersecurity and brand protection. Through Ebrand, designed to meet the needs of major international clients, the group offers solutions capable of detecting and neutralising fraudulent use before it even goes live. With strong growth, technological diversification and geographical expansion, the company is now operating in a field that has become strategic: the global control of digital identities.
In your view, what is the main lesson you have learnt from your experience – or from your ongoing reflections – regarding succession planning and engaging the next generation within your company?
Xavier Buck. – “At this stage, the question of succession does not yet arise in practical terms, as the next generation is still studying. However, preparations are already underway, not through a formal handover of roles, but through training, exposure and support.
The main lesson, in my view, is that a successful succession cannot be imposed at the last minute: it is built up over time, by helping the next generation to develop a solid, multidisciplinary education, a truly open mind, and an entrepreneurial spirit. From this perspective, the children have also learnt a great deal from their father, by seeing first-hand what it means to be an entrepreneur, to make decisions, to take risks and to champion a vision.
So, for the time being, rather than being strictly about succession, it is primarily a matter of guidance: helping them to make the right choices as they progress, to develop intellectually and personally, and to acquire the tools that will enable them, when the time comes, to take on responsibilities with legitimacy and freedom.
Which decisions or developments in the areas of governance or the professionalisation of management have had the most significant impact on your company?
“The major turning point in terms of governance was realising early on that an entrepreneur doesn’t have to be good at everything, and above all mustn’t try to control everything. I realised very early on that my true value lay in vision, development, technology, negotiation and the ability to think long-term, not in micromanagement or repetitive tasks.
The most pivotal decision, therefore, was to delegate, to trust others, and to build a team of people with complementary skills around me. In reality, the professionalisation of management began the day I accepted that good leadership isn’t about doing everything yourself, but about relying on the right people.
How does your company balance the need to honour its heritage with the need to innovate or transform itself in order to remain competitive?
“This question undoubtedly applies differently in my case, because I built my businesses from scratch. So, strictly speaking, there is no historical legacy to preserve in the traditional sense. From the very beginning, our DNA has been built around creativity, technology and the ability to innovate.
In reality, for us, the risk isn’t that we’ll go too far with the transformation, but rather that we won’t move fast enough. In our industry, if we aren’t able to remain among the most innovative – or even stay one step ahead of the competition – we’ll simply disappear.
For me, therefore, the limit does not lie in the transformation itself. Rather, it lies in remaining true to what constitutes our core identity: entrepreneurial spirit, agility, ambition and the determination to shape the future. As long as these fundamentals remain intact, evolving does not mean betraying the company; it means, quite the contrary, remaining true to its very purpose.
What were the most decisive choices regarding the financing of growth, and how did they influence the company’s governance and trajectory?
“The most crucial decision was to fund our growth organically, opting for a series of small acquisitions rather than pursuing overly aggressive expansion. In several countries, local managers were able to carry out micro-acquisitions themselves, which enabled us to build growth in a gradual, disciplined and very practical manner.
This decision was crucial to retaining control of the company and staying in charge of our direction. Looking back, I would make the same choice again: growth that may be slower, but is far more independent, robust and under our control.
What tax or legal issues have proved most critical for your family business, and how have you addressed them with a long-term perspective in mind?
“The tax and legal issue that has most compelled us to plan ahead and rethink the future of the company is clearly the changing competitive landscape. For a long time, Luxembourg enjoyed certain tax advantages that helped attract business and sustain a favourable economic climate. Over time, these advantages have gradually disappeared as part of a wider harmonisation process, and we have had to adapt to this new reality.
At the same time, the regulatory burden has continued to grow. Year after year, administrative, compliance and reporting obligations have taken on an increasingly significant role. For a family business, this means devoting considerable energy to managing complexity, when that energy should instead be channelled into growing the business, investing and planning for the future.
This has prompted us to become more structured, to plan ahead more effectively and to take a long-term view in our decision-making. But it has also reinforced a very simple conviction: if Europe wishes to preserve its ability to foster the emergence and growth of robust businesses, it must move towards greater simplicity, greater clarity and a truly unified framework for companies operating within its market.
What strategies have been most effective in developing your product or service offering whilst remaining true to the company’s core values?
“The most effective way to develop our offering whilst remaining true to the company’s DNA has been to build on our long-standing expertise rather than turn our backs on it. Originally, we were primarily a service provider, with extensive expertise in hosting and, above all, in the registration of domain names on an international scale. It is on this foundation that we built our reputation, first in Europe with EuroDNS, then by gradually expanding our presence through a series of acquisitions.
The turning point came when we transformed this DNS expertise into detection capabilities. Thanks to the data we analyse and our position at the heart of the internet ecosystem, the move into cybersecurity felt like a natural progression. This business is now operated under the Ebrand.com brand.
This is undoubtedly the development that has most shaken our certainties—and those of our teams—because it has shifted our focus from a purely technical service approach to a much broader one centred on protection and anticipating threats. Today, we are able to detect phishing campaigns, identity theft attempts and online counterfeiting schemes in real time, particularly for brands.
This shift represents a genuine transformation for our group. It allows us to remain true to our core values, which have always been deeply rooted in infrastructure and trust within the digital environment, whilst opening up a much more powerful avenue for growth. It is clearly one of the developments that will enable us to grow twice as fast in the future as we did in the past.
At what point did you feel it was necessary to accelerate the company’s growth, and what lessons have you learnt from this phase of scaling up?
“We realised on two occasions that it was becoming riskier to stay the same size than to accelerate our growth.
The first time was with EuroDNS, when we began making targeted acquisitions in the registrar sector. At that point, we saw very clearly that there was a real leverage effect. Each competitor we acquired could be integrated into our technological backbone, which not only allowed us to grow in size but also significantly improved profitability. In other words, external growth wasn’t just about expanding; it also allowed us to increase margins very significantly. That’s when we realised that a well-executed scale-up could create much more value than simple organic growth.
The second phase, which we are currently experiencing, is of a different nature, but it is just as crucial. It is based on the strength of the product we have developed at Ebrand. When clients from among the world’s biggest brands compare you to the best American software on the market and conclude that your solution is superior, it fundamentally changes the outlook. From that point on, the real risk is no longer in accelerating, but in failing to do so. This gives us the conviction that we must now push our international development much more strongly, particularly in markets such as the UK and the US.
The key lesson from these two phases is quite simple. You should not scale up simply for the sake of it, nor solely for the sake of growth. You should scale up when you have either a very strong integration lever or a truly distinctive product. At such times, scaling up is no longer a gamble; it is almost a strategic imperative.
What were the main drivers – and the main challenges – of your internationalisation strategy?
“The motivation behind our international expansion has always been very clear: to seek growth wherever the markets are. For a group like ours, remaining confined to our home market would have made no sense. The aim was not merely to export our expertise, but to gain access to larger, more dynamic markets and, ultimately, to much more powerful sources of growth.
The key lesson, however, is that ‘going global’ is not a one-size-fits-all proposition. There is no single global strategy; rather, there is a series of country-specific strategies. We have seen this through our expansion and development in Europe, whether in Catalonia, Hungary or other markets. In each case, we have to deal with a different reality: the maturity of the market, its pace, its level of competition, how to sell, how to recruit, and even the speed at which a foreign company can establish its legitimacy there.
The main realisation, really, was this: the bigger the market, the greater the challenge. Large markets are naturally the most attractive, but they are also those where competition is fiercest and where execution must be most rigorous. Today, this is particularly true of the UK, which we are actively pursuing, and even more so of the US, where we are entering ambitiously thanks to the strength of the offering developed under Ebrand.com.
The real challenge at this stage is therefore less theoretical and more practical: attracting the right talent locally, establishing the right commercial presence, finding the right pace for investment, and accepting that you cannot conquer a major market using the same methods as you would for a closer or more familiar market. This is what makes international expansion demanding, but it is also what makes it a powerful driver of transformation and growth.
In your experience, how can a family business attract and retain key talent in an increasingly competitive environment?
“In an increasingly competitive talent market, what really sets us apart is not our organisational structure or status, but the nature of the project we are working on.
We are a fast-growing technology company specialising in cutting-edge fields. To attract the best developers, IT professionals and top-tier tech talent, we need to offer much more than just a job. The best candidates want to help create something innovative, develop real solutions, drive a product forward and make a direct impact.
That’s where we have a real advantage. In many large corporations, a significant proportion of the technical teams focus mainly on maintaining existing systems. At our company, they are here to build, improve and drive forward solutions that lie at the very heart of the company’s strategy.
Ultimately, this is what attracts and retains key talent: an ambitious project, cutting-edge technology, the ability to get things done quickly, and the chance to make a tangible contribution to something that is being built.
How has increased international competition in your domestic market changed your positioning, organisation or strategy?
“The intensifying international competition in our market has, above all, forced us to constantly re-evaluate our approach. Essentially, competition is growing, but customer expectations are growing even faster. Today, customers expect more in terms of service quality, speed, reliability and responsiveness. This is what has compelled us to continually raise our standards of performance.
The first thing we had to fundamentally change was our approach to continuous improvement. We have learnt to constantly challenge ourselves, review our processes, identify bottlenecks more quickly and constantly look for ways to improve our performance.
Technology has played a central role in this evolution, particularly artificial intelligence. We use it to optimise speed and efficiency at every level, whether in our internal operations, the development of our solutions, or our customer relationships. This ability to accelerate processes, automate them intelligently and enhance the customer experience has become a key strategic driver for remaining competitive.
Over time, this challenge has made us stronger, faster and more efficient. So much so that today, the dynamic has almost been reversed. It is no longer just international competitors who are coming onto our turf. We, too, are now going out to meet them on their own ground, in international markets, with the ambition and the resources to make our mark.”
This article was written for the June 2026 issue of Paperjam magazine, published on 20 May. The content is produced exclusively for the magazine. It is published on the website to contribute to Paperjam’s comprehensive archive. Click on this link to subscribe to the magazine.
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