Annual Report 2021

Every fiduciary management client has a dedicated team made up of a Client Director, a Portfolio Manager and a Strategist. Our team is involved in everything from the request for proposal (RFP) and pitch, to onboarding the client and then looking after their ongoing needs. From the client’s perspective, the Client Director is the face of the company. And from an internal perspective, we’re the face of the client.

There are around 30 of us working at the UK office, so it has a very creative, start-up feel about it – but with the support of the parent company. For me, this is an ideal environment: entrepreneurial but without losing the security of working for a larger firm. Our London office is also close to my home, so I get to feel at one with my Dutch colleagues and can cycle to work too!

Being part of the Dutch business has been especially helpful this past year: we’ve been so busy that it’s been great to have the ability to call on our colleagues in the Netherlands for further support when we need it. People are very willing to help, no matter which country or team they’re in.

Catherine Lewis – Head of Fiduciary Management Clients, UK

When looking at acquisitions, we would work together closely to translate strategic objectives and concerns into contractual terms. All that working together and acting as one eventually led to my moving to join the S&CD team in November 2021.

I still work on M&A, but now from a commercial and economic angle rather than from a legal perspective. When Van Lanschot Kempen comes across an opportunity to expand the group or sell off non-core parts of it, the S&CD team gets involved. But so do lots of colleagues in other departments.

Take the recent partnership with Mercier Vanderlinden, for example: we had a dedicated team working on this. The process started with due diligence: the management team of our Belgian branch looked into Mercier Vanderlinden’s positioning and client proposition; Legal looked at the company’s legal documents and contracts; Compliance checked whether the client due diligence files were up to scratch; and the list goes on. It was definitely a team effort!

Andi Bimo – Corporate Development Director

I’m very grateful to Van Lanschot Kempen, because my managers really gave me the opportunity to develop that skillset. So much so that in November 2021, I won the Digital Talent Award from RightBrains and Computable. It’s a national prize and I was shortlisted along with four other women, but ultimately I got the most votes from the jury and the public. I was overwhelmed by the support of my colleagues. But that’s characteristic of the company: the atmosphere is one of a kind. All teams are very supportive of each other (across departments, too) and lots of opportunities are given to individuals, which is rare in a listed company. I feel like the award was a joint effort!

Because of the pandemic, I’ve been working from home a lot – but I really like to come into the office to meet with my colleagues when I can. I have the Mobility Mixx card, which means I can take the metro, rent a share car, or walk or bike to work if the weather’s nice – it’s a very flexible way to get face-to-face time with the team.

Lisanne Smink – Product Owner Business Intelligence and Analytics

I then got the opportunity to do a six-month internship at ABN AMRO in the Netherlands, after which I got in touch via LinkedIn with someone at Van Lanschot Kempen in Switzerland. Being half-Swiss and half-Dutch, I’m proud to work for one of the only Dutch private banks in Switzerland.

I’ve been working here alongside my studies for two years, first as a relationship manager and now as a junior portfolio manager. Together with my colleague who’s the main portfolio manager, I help invest the portfolios of our clients in Switzerland. They’re mostly Dutch and Belgian clients, but we can give them opportunities in Switzerland that they’re not able to get elsewhere with our professional fund house, which offers an interesting product range.

Because we’re a team of only around 40 people, we’re all based in one building in Zurich – so it’s very easy to communicate and solve issues in an agile and dynamic way. For example, the Investment team and international wealth managers have a very close relationship with each other – they visit their clients together and collaborate on strategies, so they can better serve their clients.

Pascal Cadonau – Junior Portfolio Manager, Switzerland

The teamwork at the company is very strong. In Digital, Advanced Analytics & Technology especially, the teams are very diverse – which really helps broaden your perspective and ensures you’re developing solutions for all kinds of people. My team is responsible for all the websites of our company brands as well as the careers site. Our job is to maintain these sites but also to implement and test new functionalities to develop our business.

In 2021, we created an online request for proposal (RFP) environment that allows the Pre-sales team to make personalised web pages for their prospects. A pension fund might be interested in our investment management capabilities, for instance, and now we can give them a web page with all the information they need during the RFP phase – specific documents, contact details and so on. And all that information is carefully secured behind a personalised login. It was a great exercise in teamwork between the Pre-sales team, our colleagues in Marketing and Communications, the UX designers, the Security team and my team’s developers, as we needed to figure out all the requirements, functionality, design and security together.

Leonie Janssen Daalen – Product Owner, Omni-channel Acquisition team

So we’re not selecting specific funds or bonds, but we’re looking at overall asset allocation. We do that for several client segments – including Private Clients and Wholesale & Institutional Clients – across the whole group. That means I’m frequently taking the Thalys train back and forth between the Netherlands and Belgium, where I’m from.

There’s a lot of communication involved – both internally, holding calls twice a week to brief our bankers and advisers, and externally, holding one-on-one meetings with clients and making presentations to larger groups. They’re all important because they give us an opportunity to get direct feedback and ask questions in both directions. As economists, we try not to stay in our ivory tower: my view has always been that we can learn from each other and work together to improve our service to clients, regardless of which business line or client segment people are in. For instance, I try to include our solutions for Wholesale & Institutional Clients in my story to Private Clients.

What’s unique about the company is that we’re big enough to provide clients with high-quality solutions, but small enough to allow entrepreneurship. You don’t have to stick to your formal position in the organisation: if you’re willing to show entrepreneurial spirit and grasp opportunities, you can do anything.

Luc Aben – Chief Economist

I cover the western region of the Netherlands, which means I need to drive around a lot to visit my clients in their company offices, at home, or at one of our own offices. I give them insights into their personal financial situations as well as those of their companies. How much of a client’s capital needs to be put to work to ensure their financial independence, versus how much can they leave to the next generation? Who will succeed them in the business – a family member, private-equity investor or strategic partner?

I’ve been at the company for a long time – partly because it’s always allowed me to grow and develop professionally, and partly because I like my colleagues so much. People are very open to helping out and seeking collaboration. For example, a client in The Hague sold his company and needed advice on investments and wealth structuring, but he was also very interested in sustainable investments. So I was on the team, but so were two colleagues from the solutions side who were able to present our in-house expertise on sustainable investing to him. And as a result, the client chose Van Lanschot Kempen to manage his money.

Yanka Ditewig – Wealth Structurer

My team’s role is two-fold: my colleagues in Client Experience take stock of client feedback, employee feedback and market sentiment/sector trends, and use these to map out processes and identify where they could be improved. My colleagues in Sales Management are essentially tasked with initiating and cultivating a shared sales culture across the company. In both cases, it’s all focused on improving the way we do business. And that means we do a lot of talking to other departments, by definition!

My team’s mission simply couldn’t happen if we were working alone. We need our colleagues from other teams to implement and execute based on our advice. As an example, in 2021 we collected a lot of data about our mortgage process – that meant interviews with clients, of course, but also collaboration with the Product Management team, the Complaints department, IT and so on. We visualised all this input in a tool, recognised the opportunities for improvement, and are now activating the entire value chain to improve the mortgage process from end to end. We talk about acting as one a lot – and in this case we really acted as one to find the best solution.

Rob van Valkenburg – Head of Client & Prospect Journey Optimisation

Before I joined Van Lanschot Kempen in 2019, I was actually studying law – first in Vienna (I’m from Austria originally) and then in Amsterdam. But I was looking for an internship that allowed law students to join, and have since discovered my passion for ECM.

I really enjoy working at Van Lanschot Kempen: it’s a very flat organisation, which makes the learning curve a lot easier, and I work with a lot of smart (but also fun!) people. It’s probably because of my colleagues that in October 2021 I joined the Works Council, as its first international member. Our role is to represent employees and their interests when it comes to things like employment conditions, pensions and – since the pandemic – working from home policies. We’ve recently been involved in the new transport policy, which means that my colleagues and I are compensated for whichever mode of transport we use to commute. For me, that means sometimes walking to work and sometimes taking public transport.

Roxy Kashanipour – Associate, Equity Capital Markets

As Head of Investment Strategy in the UK, my responsibilities are four-fold: I’m responsible for asset allocation decisions on behalf of our UK clients; defining our research agenda; supporting colleagues in the Wholesale & Institutional Clients segment on winning new business; and working with the UK management team to set the growth direction of the UK business.

In 2021, I was proud to be named Investment Manager of the Year by Professional Pensions, the biggest pensions-focused publication in the UK. They looked at what our portfolio achieved during the previous year, and how we identified and took opportunities for our clients in the immediate aftermath of the start of the pandemic. Our portfolio was also deemed to have performed among the best, and with the lowest level of risk, compared with our competitors.

From a personal perspective, 2021 was also an exciting year. I moved house to get more green space, so it takes me a little longer on the train to work. But more importantly, my son was born in July and I was able to take shared parental leave to spend time with him. The company’s attitude towards these personal milestones has been wonderful – they genuinely care about their employees as individuals.

Nikesh Patel – Head of Investment Strategy, UK

My role involves supporting five SCRUM teams in digital innovation: making sure they have what they need to do their job, but that they also feel empowered to fulfil their potential and incorporate their individual talents into the workplace. The job also involves innovation and making sure we’re moving forward. A great example is a two-day hackathon we’re organising in 2022. More than 80 colleagues will be involved, from all different teams and with different ideas and problems to solve.

Speaking of innovation, as you can see from the photo I’ve chosen an electric car for my commute to work. Having a car gives me the freedom to travel wherever and whenever I like, which is important to me.

Conchita Lopez Vega – People Manager, Digital, Advanced Analytics & Technology

What’s unique about the company is that your responsibilities are so broad, and the impact you can make is so pronounced. For instance, I’m the sponsor of the traineeship programme, currently consisting of five trainees. One of them has spent five months working on the KPIs and targets for the company’s liquidity buffer. Based on her advice, we’ve even sold some assets because of their longer-term sustainability risk. That just goes to show how everyone can speak up and be heard.

At Treasury, we’re also working in the trading room – an interesting space to occupy because it brings together lots of different competencies in one room. For example, Treasury, Securities and the Investment Advisory team for professional clients work closely with the Asset, Research & Communication team – responsible for Van Lanschot Kempen's house views on economic developments, asset allocation and individual securities, as well as communication of these views to our clients and the wider audience.

Gerben Zeilstra – Head of Treasury

As an example, in 2021 we completed a biometric voice recognition project. It essentially makes the identification process much quicker and safer for clients as they can use their voice to identify themselves when speaking to us. So it’s about customer service, but also about technological innovation.

At Client Services, we get lots of data about the kinds of questions that clients are asking, which makes us the linking pin between the client and the rest of the organisation. For instance, one of my team members straddles two departments: the Complaints team and the Online Banking team. That means he takes the information we gather at Client Services and brings that client feedback both to the IT department to improve online banking, and to the Complaints department to rectify common issues. By placing one colleague in two different places, we can actually use all the input we receive to the benefit of the client. And the outcome is that clients see the value from the feedback they’re giving.

Martijn Boevink – Manager of Client Services