Panel of Judges M&A Awards 2024

Marc van Gelder

Founder & CEO at Dennendonck Investments and former CEO of Mediq

Marc van Gelder is founder & CEO at Dennendonck Investments and was CEO of Mediq from 2005-2014. From 1996-2004 Marc worked at Ahold. His positions included Director Corporate Business Development and President and CEO of Peapod USA. Prior to Ahold he was an Associate Principal at McKinsey. Currently, Marc is chairman of the board at Incision and JP Morgan European Discovery Trust plc. He is also supervisory board member of Action and a board member of the Netherland-America Foundation.

He was chairman of the supervisory board of Nexeye, Vastned, Diabetes Fonds and Quantib and member of the supervisory board of Maxeda DIY Group, GIMV and Medeye.

Marc earned his Bachelor of Economics, Master of Finance at Erasmus University in Rotterdam and his MBA at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

Koos Breen

Former CEO Van Leeuwen Buizen Groep, specializes in family and private equity owned businesses in the midmarket segment.

Koos Breen was President and CEO of Van Leeuwen Buizen Groep from 1998 until 2007. From 1978 to 1998 Koos worked at Philips Electronics. His positions included Managing Director East Asia and Managing Director Asia Pacific.

Currently he is Non-Executive Director at Teijin Aramid, Royal Smilde, Black Bear Carbon, Well Engineering Partners.

He was Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Royal Ahrend and Chairman of the Advisory Board of Muller Shipping. Koos also acted as Industry advisor for IK Invest.

Koos earned his Master of Science Mechanical Engineering at Delft University of Technology and Bachelor Business Administration at Rotterdam University.

Gaby Smeenk

Partner at De Brauw Blackstone Westbroek

Maurits Duynstee

Partner at Axeco and former Head of CF Benelux at Deutsche Bank, and former, Head Wholesale Banking NL, Global co-head CF at ING Bank

Maurits specializes in international and complex M&A transactions and public tenders of Exchange-listed Dutch companies.

Maurits is partner at Axeco and has a very broad corporate finance background in both equity capital markets and M&A Advisory and has been active as a corporate finance advisor for more than 30 years. In 2009, 2013 and 2015, during the annual Alex van Groningen M&A Awards Gala, Maurits was voted best M&A advisor in the Netherlands, and under his leadership, ING Corporate Finance was also voted best M&A House in the Netherlands.
Next to his role as partner at Axeco Maurits has several board positions.

Maurits studied at Erasmus University in Rotterdam.

Cilian Jansen Verplanke

Founding Partner at Karmijn Kapitaal

Cilian is Founding Partner at Karmijn Kapitaal. Jansen Verplanke has over 30 years of experience in the financial sector, including private equity and commercial banking at ABN Amro and Rabobank.

Mayte Oosterveld

CFO at  Just Eat Takeaway.com

Mayte started at Goldman Sachs and specialized in mergers, acquisitions, and corporate finance. She held various leadership positions at Goldman, such as business unit manager and executive director in equity capital markets, responsible for investment fund IPOs. Subsequently, Mayte Oosterveld joined Ahold, where she led the Merger & Acquisitions department and was responsible for a significant number of transactions, including the merger between Ahold and Delhaize. In her final role as SVP Business Planning & Performance at Ahold Delhaize, she was responsible for management reporting and budget planning. Starting from June 1, 2019, she serves as the CFO and a member of the executive team at PLUS Retail.

Rob van der Laan

Managing Partner and  Founder of NewPort Capital

Rob is Managing Partner & Founder at NewPort Capital. Van der Laan has over 30 years of experience in the M&A and Private Equity. He was Partner at Turnpoint Corporate Finance until 2003 and at Boer & Croon Corporate Finance until 2012. Following that he was a Partner at Bencis Capital and started with NewPort Capital in 2017.

Brigitte van der Maarel

Managing Director, Head of NIBC Mezzanine & Equity Partners

Brigitte is Managing Partner of Karmijn Kapitaal. She has over 25 years of experience in Private Equity, Leveraged Finance and M&A from positions at among others ABN AMRO, ING, INKEF Capital, Convent Capital and leadership position at NIBC Investment Partners before joining Karmijn in 2021.

Parallel to the above Brigitte gained substantial experience in Supervisory Board and Investment Committee positions. Brigitte is currently on the board of a technical installation company, a family company active in the field of electrification and heat transition. Further, Brigitte is on the Advisory Boards of both a real estate investment company, family owned, and the Executive Master Valuation and M&A (VU/RUG).

In the PE Sector, Brigitte is on the board of the Dutch Chapter of Level20 where she has been active seting up the mentoring program. Brigitte studied business economics at the Erasmus University in Rotterdam, specialisation Finance & Investments.

Maasbert Schouten

Entrepreneur, investor and CEO at N.V. MaasInvest

Maasbert is a true entrepreneur and a.o. ‘Baron of Entrepreneurship’ of Harvard University. He founded several successful companies, including AFAB Holding N.V. when he was just 21 years old, which grew from a one-man business to a holding company with 1,000 employees. In 2009 he founded N.V. MaasInvest, a professional investment company that currently invests in over 80 private equity funds and a significant number of deal-by-deal and co-investments (with a core focus on Dutch lower mid-market buyouts), has a very successful track record and of which he is currently active as CEO. He also holds a number of Advisory Board and Investment Committee roles in the Dutch private equity landscape.

Margot Engels 

 Operational Partner and CEO at Holland Capital

Aleksa Nikolic

Investment Banking Associate at Lazard

Aleksa is an Investment Banking Associate at Lazard, based in Amsterdam. He worked on a broad range of deals in TMT, Consumer, Industrials, Logistics and Healthcare sectors, advising clients such as Philips, Mammoet, Apollo and Keensight Capital, among others. His deal experience includes both Dutch deals, as well as cross-border transactions with targets located in Germany, Russia and Denmark.

Prior to joining Lazard, Aleksa spent six years with ING, of which three years in its Corporate Finance team advising clients in M&A deals and three years in its Corporate Strategy department as an inhouse strategy consultant, advising ING’s top management.

Aleksa is the winner of last year’s ‘Best Young M&A Advisor’ award.

Tanja Kramer

Head of ABN AMRO Sustainable Impact Fund

Tanja heads the ABN AMRO Sustainable Impact Fund, which has a commitment of € 500m and invests in a world in transition with the primary focus on climate. Tanja has 20 years of experience in M&A, investing and venture capital.

Christiane (Schnellert) van der Wateren

Head of Finance Europe at Versuni

Christiane has 20 years of relevant expertise in Financial Controlling, Business Modeling and Value Creation, Problem Solving, Planning & Analysis and M&A. She worked and lived in Germany, Singapore and The Netherlands.
Since 2015, Christiane is working as Finance Lead of the Mergers, Acquisitions and Divestments department in Philips. She oversees Financial Due Diligence and DD Vendor Engagement, the Finance Integration/Carve-out Strategy and finance related integration/disentanglement activities. She also is responsible for M&A Budget Control and Post Integration Performance Reporting. Through her role, she was involved in the IPO divestment of Philips’ Lighting division in 2016 and in more than 20 acquisition projects that Philips had worked on over the past 4 years.
Christiane holds a degree as Executive Master of Finance & Control (University of Maastricht) and a Diploma in Business Administration (University of Hamburg, Diplom-Kauffrau). She is Lean Six Sigma certified (Black Belt).

Willianne van Zandwijk

Managing partner and Head of Corporate M&A Practice at NautaDutilh UK

Willianne van Zandwijk is managing partner and head of the corporate M&A practice of NautaDutilh’s London office. Willianne is an all-round transaction lawyer, advising a variety of corporate clients and financial investors on cross-border and domestic M&A transactions, with a particular focus on transactions in the infrastructure, real estate and private equity sectors. Willianne is a member of the Private Equity Team.

Representative experience of Willianne includes advising:
·         RTL on its  proposed merger of RTL Nederland and Talpa Network;
·         Silver Lake on its proposed acquisition of a strategic minority stake in Exact and on its investment in Getir B.V.;
·         Long standing client Neste Corporation on its acquisition of Bunge’s refinery plant in Rotterdam and its acquisition of Count Terminal Rotterdam;
·         AroundTown on various transactions;
·         Quadrum Capital on its sale of real estate developer VanWonen
·         Blokker Holding on the management-buy out of the Blokker and Big Bazar retail chains by Blokker Holding’s CEO and on the sale of De Marskramer;
·         Brookfield on its acquisition of a majority stake in Schoeller Allibert Group;
·         The Carlyle Group on its acquisition of Hunkemoller and on its acquisition of Dobla (via its portfolio company, Irca);
·         SHV Holdings, a family-owned multinational, on the merger of its group company Dyas Holdings B.V. with Oranje-Nassau Energie B.V.

 Willianne obtained her Master’s degree in Dutch Civil Law from Erasmus University Rotterdam (cum laude). Willianne completed a post graduate degree in energy law (VU Amsterdam).

Katherine de Kruiff

Associate at Torqx Capital Partners

Katherine is an Associate at Torqx Capital Partners. Katherine is responsible for supporting several of Torqx’ portfolio companies (Beter Bed, Nexio Projects, Fri-Jado) as well as sourcing, evaluating and deal execution of investment opportunities. She is eager to find new and challenging opportunities and enjoys working together with management teams to identify and implement key initiatives realizing the strategic potential of the company. Katherine is a pragmatic problem-solver with an energetic and positive mindset.

Katherine holds an MSc. Degree in Quantitative Marketing & Business Analytics from the Erasmus School of Economics (cum laude). She was awarded ‘Best Young PE Manager’ in 2023.

Ronald Kemmeren

Investment Director at DELTA Equity Partners

Ronald is a Vice President at HPE Growth where he is responsible for sourcing, evaluating and deal execution of prospective investment opportunities in European growth stage technology companies as well as supporting HPE Growth’s portfolio companies WeTransfer, Tiqets, Uberall and Airborne International with their respective growth strategies. In addition, Ronald is an advisory board member at VEECEE which is a pan-European network of Venture Capital and Growth Capital professionals. In 2019, the Dutch M&A Association acknowledged Ronald as the Best Young Private Equity Manager in the Netherlands.

Prior to joining HPE in June 2016, Ronald was an Associate in the Private Equity division of Dasym Investment Strategies, which is a global TMT investment boutique, where he was among others assisting on a number of private equity investments in the media, consumer and internet sectors. Before joining Dasym, Ronald was in the Investment Banking Department of Morgan Stanley.

Ronald holds an MSc. degree in Finance & Investments from Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University, where he graduated Cum Laude.
He also was awarded ‘Best Young PE Manager’ in 2019.

Wendy van Luit

Director at Strategy& Deals, part of PwC Netherlands

Wendy van Luit is a Director at Strategy& Deals, PwC’s in-house strategy consultancy in the Netherlands focused on commercial due diligence, M&A strategy support and value creation. She works with leading private equity firms, corporate boards and management teams on their most important strategic investment decisions, from developing M&A strategies, assessing deal opportunities to realising value post deal. She has extensive experience in both buyside and sell-side processes across industries with main expertise in the Business Services sector and in Retail & Consumer markets. She has deal experience in the Netherlands and Singapore. Prior to joining Strategy& Deals, Wendy worked as corporate finance professional at Rabobank.

Wendy won the award for Best Young M&A advisor in 2020.

She holds a MSc in Financial Economics from the University of Rotterdam (graduated cum laude).

Nathalie van Woerkom

Partner at AKD

Nathalie van Woerkom is a lawyer and partner at AKD. She has extensive experience in general corporate law and specializes in mergers, acquisitions and private equity. For example, Nathalie has worked in various places on cross-border due diligence and restructuring of Dutch activities. She also advises on the various aspects of distressed M&A.

Nathalie’s clients include large international companies, joint ventures in Europe, USA, Asia and Africa, and management buy-outs. Chambers Global, Legal 500 and IFLR1000 recognize Nathalie as a leading individual. Her clients praise her as an “excellent negotiator and great team leader”.