Panel of Judges M&A Awards 2024

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.

Gaby Smeenk

Partner at De Brauw Blackstone Westbroek

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.

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

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.

Margot Engels 

 Operational Partner and CEO at Holland Capital

Aleksa Nikolic

Investment Banking Associate at Lazard

Aleksa Nikolic is …..

Tanja Kramer

Head of ABN AMRO Sustainable Impact Fund

Tanja heads the ABN AMRO Sustainable Impact Fund which has a commitment of € 500m funded and managed by ABN AMRO and invests in a world in transition with the primary focus on climate.

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

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.

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.

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”.