Marc van Gelder

Partner at Karmijn Kapitaal

Founder & CEO at Dennendonck Investments and former CEO of Mediq

Marc van Gelder is founder & CEO at Dennendonck Investments and former CEO of Mediq. Currently, he is Supervisory Director at Hans Anders and VastNed Retail and active as a non-executive director of the JP Morgan European Smaller Companies Trust PLC. He is also Supervisory Director at Action and Quantib. Marc is chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Diabetes Fund and is also involved in the the Netherland-America Foundation.

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, Van Leeuwen Buizen Groep, BridgeHead, Black Bear Carbon, Well Engineering Partners. He is Member Investment Committee of the TBL Mirror Fund, a fund for High Growth Businesses in Africa.

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.

Heleen Kersten

Partner Amsterdam at Stibbe

Heleen’s expertise and experience focus on mergers and acquisitions, equity capital markets, corporate law and corporate governance. She acts on behalf of leading domestic and international clients, both listed and privately held. From 2008 to 2013, she held the position of managing partner in Amsterdam whilst remaining active in her areas of specialism.

Practising at Stibbe from 1989 to 1992, Heleen subsequently joined Davis Polk in New York, and then later moved to their London office. In 1994, she returned to Stibbe Amsterdam and has practised there ever since. Heleen holds a master’s in Dutch law and a master’s in tax law, both from Leiden University. In 1988 she studied at Florida University on various corporate and tax courses, and in 1992 she undertook an orientation of American law at California University. Heleen has published articles in the areas of mergers and acquisitions and corporate governance.

Ms. Kersten is a supervisory board member of STMicroelectronics N.V, listed in Paris, Milan and New York, since 2014, Chairman of the board of the Dutch Red Cross (Vereniging Het Nederlandse Rode Kruis), since January 2020, and a supervisory board member of the Rijksmuseum (Stichting Het Rijksmuseum), since 2015. She is also a board member of the Foundation Donors of the Royal Concertgebouw Ochestra (Stichting Donateurs Koninklijk Concertgebouworkest), since 2010.

Maurits Duynstee

Former Head of CF Benelux at Deutsche Bank and MD, Head Wholesale Banking NL, Global co-head CF at ING Bank and partner at Axeco

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 20 years. Between 1993 and 2008, he was active at ABN AMRO, after which he transferred to ING Bank. Within ING Wholesale Banking, he was ultimately responsible for the international Corporate Finance platform and led the Corporate Clients departments and various product groups in the Netherlands. In 2009, 2013 and 2015, during the annual Alex van Groningen M&A 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. In 2018, Maurits was Managing Director, Head of Corporate Finance and Client Coverage Benelux at Deutsche Bank.

Maurits studied at Erasmus University in Rotterdam.

Cilian Jansen Verplanke

Partner at Karmijn Kapitaal

Cilian is 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.

Désirée van Boxtel

Partner at Karmijn Kapitaal

Desiree is Partner at Karmijn Kapitaal. Karmijn stands for diversity in fund and portfolio management. Desiree has been elected by Sprout as 1 of the 30 inclusive leaders of 2021 and is also a board member of the Dutch Association of Private Equity Companies.

She has almost 30 years of experience in both private equity and entrepreneurship. She has set up and managed ABN AMRO Participations for small and medium sized enterprises and has managed private equity investments for for several informal investors. In the zeros she was an entrepreneur. Among others, she started her own company and sold it successfully in 2007.

Arwien Oemrawsingh

Deputy civil-law notary at Allen & Overy

Arwien Oemrawsingh is a deputy civil-law notary in the Projects & Real Estate team at Allen & Overy.

Arwien Oemrawsingh specialises in real estate law and related notarial (corporate) law. He has broad experience in a wide variety of real estate transactions, including advising on commercial real estate transactions, controlled auctions of real estate portfolios, real estate aspects of the development of on- and offshore wind and solar projects, and the provision of security in the financing of the aforementioned transactions.

Arwien Oemrawsingh is a member of the Allen & Overy Cultural Diversity Equity & Inclusion committee and Arwien is also a member of the committee set up by the Royal Dutch Association of Civil-Law Notaries for the revision of the mandatory vocational training for deputy civil-law notaries.

Joeri de Groot

Managing Director at AlpInvest Partners

Joeri de Groot is a Managing Director in AlpInvest Partners’ Co-Investment team and focuses on equity transactions in Europe.
He is also involved in various diversity initiatives within and outside AlpInvest, including the diversity committee of the NVP.

He joined AlpInvest Partners in 2012 from McKinsey & Company, where he was an Engagement Manager, working in both the corporate finance and the strategy consulting practice mainly focused on utilities and oil and gas (service) companies.

Meltem Koning-Gungormez

Partner at Van Doorne

Kay de Gier-Formanek

Founder and CEO at KAY Diversity & Performance

Kay is Founder and Managing Director of KAY Diversity and Performance, a company committed to unleashing the business benefits of performance. Before founding her company Kay was Managing Director at Accenture, a company she served for 25 years. During her tenure at Accenture she led the Diversity and Inclusion Practice and assumed a leadership role in the Women Council and High Potential Development Program.

She is an author of diversity books, a lecturer and collaborator at a number of leading Business Schools and serves as coach and advisor to Boards and leaders across the globe on the area of Diversity. Her key focus is Unconscious Bias and How Diversity translates to Business Performance. She is a welcomed speaker at major events on the topic of Diversity leadership. She serves as Vice Chair of an NGO serving the interests of women and children in fragile states. She is mother of 3 kids and avid sportswoman and lives in The Netherlands.

Robert de Boeck

Founder and Management Partner of Antea

Robert is Founder and Managing Partner of Antea. In 1992, within Staal Bankiers, he developed the unique formula of a private equity firm for small and medium-sized businesses in which the capital is raised by Informal Investors. From that moment on, he was in charge and managed Staal Participaties.

He graduated cum laude in Economics at the Erasmus University in Rotterdam in 1986. After graduation he worked as an investment analyst at Nationale-Nederlanden and made the switch to Staal Bankiers in 1987, where he worked until March 1999 on mergers, acquisitions and participations. In March 1999 he realised a Management Buy-Out, whereby the participation funds were privatised which led to the establishment of Antea.

Rob van der Laan

Founder and Managing Partner of NewPort Capital

Rob is the founder and Managing Partner of NewPort Capital and has 25 years of experience in the field of Private Equity and M&A. In recent years, he was Partner at Bencis Capital Partners, where he initiated, supervised and realised various successful investments with the management teams involved. Rob was Partner at Boer & Croon Corporate Finance from 2004 to 2012, and Managing Partner of the Boer & Croon Group from 2008 to 2011. Prior to that he was involved for nearly 10 years in Turnpoint, an M&A boutique in Rotterdam. Rob started his career at Deloitte in 1993 after completing his studies in business finance and accountancy at the Erasmus University in Rotterdam.

Brigitte van der Maarel

Managing Director, Head of NIBC Mezzanine & Equity Partners

Since 2017 Brigitte is leading the NIBC Mezzanine and Equity Partners (MEP) team. The MEP team offers flexible capital/investment structures which vary from minority equity participations to mezzanine loans. The MEP team manages a portfolio of over EUR 300m. Before NIBC she worked for 15 years at ABN AMRO in areas of Leveraged Finance, Corporate Development and thereafter M&A and investment positions at ING CF, VEON, Inkef Capital and Convent Capital.

Maasbert Schouten

Entrepreneur, investor and CEO at MaasInvest N.V.

Maasbert Schouten is a real entrepreneur. He founded several companies, including AFAB Holding NV (from sole proprietorship to holding company with 1,000 employees), bought and sold all shares of professional football club Vitesse, became a well-known appearance in many (business) magazines, such as Quote. He is currently active as a director and business advisor, but mainly as an investor as CEO of NV MaasInvest.

Tanja Kramer

Head of Mergers and Acquisitions KPN

Tanja Kramer is responsible for the Mergers & Acquisitions department of KPN, heading a team of 5 M&A professionals. Started her career as consultant developing 3D-simulation models and worked eight years at ABN AMRO (RBS) in the Corporate Finance team thereafter. Tanja earned her Master of Science Econometrics at the University of Amsterdam and her International MBA at University Nyenrode in Breukelen.

Christiane (Schnellert) van der Wateren

Senior Director Mergers, Acquistions and Divestments at Philips

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).

Marieke Pols

Laywer at De Roos Advocaten

Marieke Pols is advocaat ondernemingsrecht. Zij begon haar carrière in 2016 bij NautaDutilh, waar ze zich specialiseerde op het gebied van corporate M&A en venture capital. Nu werkt zij in het ondernemingsrechtteam van De Roos Advocaten, waar zij zich richt op overnames, investeringsrondes en werknemersparticipaties.
Marieke studeerde in Leiden, waar ze de masters civiel recht en ondernemingsrecht cum laude afrondde. In 2019 volgde ze de M&A-specialisatieopleiding aan de VU Law Academy. In december 2020 ontving Marieke tijdens de jaarlijkse M&A awards (Alex van Groningen) de award voor Best Young M&A Lawyer. In de Legal500 (2021) wordt zij door cliënten beschreven als “highly qualified, efficient, proactive. An eye for details and for the big picture.”

Guillette van Grinsven

Partner at Houthoff

Guillette specialises in mergers and acquisitions (including company acquisitions, private equity investments, joint ventures, SPAC partnerships and restructurings). She focuses specifically on financial regulatory related mergers and acquisitions, and represents domestic and foreign private equity funds, institutional investors and strategic parties. Guillette has had a leading role in more than 50 transactions and became a partner at Houthoff in July 2022. Since 2019, Guillette has been a board member of the Dutch M&A Community. In 2016, Guillette won the Best Young Professionals Law Award.

Terry Verheij

Partner at Voxius

Voxius is a specialist firm working in Legal and/or Compliance, to help with executive search, providing interim solutions and legal strategy & operations consluting. Former M&A lawyer at Houthoff.

Eric Wijs

Managing Director and Head of Benelux at Lincoln International

Eric spearheads business development and mergers and acquisitions (M&A) activity for Lincoln International in the Benelux, a region where the private equity industry continues to develop and is increasingly considered as one of the most attractive asset classes.

Eric has more than 25 years of experience advising clients on M&A, public take-overs, divestitures, capital raisings, public offerings, leveraged buyouts, privatizations and restructurings. His clients sit across numerous geographies and include large public companies, privately held companies, private equity investors and government entities.

Prior to founding Lincoln’s Amsterdam office, Eric was a Managing Director within the financial advisory practice at Lazard, helping to establish its Amsterdam office, and also worked in the firm’s London and Paris offices. He started his career with ING Bank and transferred to London following the acquisition of Baring Brothers & Co where he worked prior to moving to Lazard’s London office.

Eric graduated in Business Administration from Erasmus University Rotterdam and holds a CEMS Master degree.

Chiel Soeters

Senior Investment Manager at De Hoge Dennen Capital 

Chiel Soeter is a Senior Investment Manager at De Hoge Dennen Capital. He is responsible for sourcing and screening of new investment opportunities as well as supporting portfolio companies to realize their strategic ambitions. Chiel started his career in the Investment Banking division of ABN AMRO.

Chiel holds an MSc. degree in Finance from Duisenberg School of Finance (Cum Laude) and completed several post graduate studies including CMA and a M&A law course at the VU. He is awarded ‘Best Young PE Manager’ in 2021.

Ronald Kemmeren

Vice President at HPE Growth

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.

Leonard Spigt

Investment Manager at Active Capital Company and winner Best Young PE Manager 2020

Leonard works as Investment Manager at Active Capital Company team. As Investment Manager at Active Capital Company Leonard is co-responsible for deal-sourcing, screening of investment opportunities and support of portfolio companies. Leonard started as an intern at Active Capital Company and completed a Master’s degree in Finance & Investments from the Erasmus University of Rotterdam. He was awarded ‘Best Young PE Manager’ in 2020.

Wouter Kros

Corporate/M&A and PE partner at AKD

Wouter Kros is a Corporate/M&A and PE partner at AKD who specialises in corporate law, mergers and acquisitions and joint ventures, often in a cross-border context. Wouter represents corporates as well as (international) private equity sponsors, their portfolio companies and management teams on all aspects of their transactions and throughout the investment lifecycle. In addition, he advises listed clients on corporate governance, securities law and general corporate law matters.

Wouter advised on many high-profile PE and M&A transactions, acting for sponsors such as Astorg, Keensight Capital, General Atlantic, Antin and corporates such as Orange, Vivendi and Cognizant. He was also involved in cross-border spin-off transactions with a listing at Dutch or international stock exchanges, such as the spin-off by Fiat Chrysler Automobiles of Ferrari and the distribution and listing at Euronext Amsterdam of Universal Music Group by Vivendi.

Wouter is known by his clients for his hands-on approach to deals, excellent transaction management skills and his eye for detail, while keeping in mind the overall picture of the transaction and the desired legal and commercial outcome.

Prior to joining AKD in 2022, Wouter worked at Loyens & Loeff for almost 14 years and was seconded to the London office for nearly three years.