Kristof Vande Capelle

Kristof Vande Capelle's thinking centers on a single, almost stubborn conviction: growth is the point, and finance exists to serve it rather than police it. At Gimv, this is stated outright as company doctrine: "Groei is ons werkwoord. Groei is onze KPI." ¹ He carries this into how he defines his own function, rejecting the classic image of the CFO as gatekeeper: "CFO is er niet om te controleren. CFO is om mee aan de kart te trekken om die groei waar te maken." ¹ This is not rhetorical positioning. Vande Capelle has restructured what EBITDA growth means operationally at Gimv, making it the single number he watches above all others: "Moest ik nog maar één cijfer willen zien waarmee dat ik aanvoel van zijn we met Gimv goed bezig of niet, dan wil ik eigenlijk de EBITDA-groei van onze portefeuillebedrijven." ² That metric doesn't just inform strategy, it has long determined staff bonuses, on the logic that if growth is realized, everything else follows ².

But his version of growth-mindedness is disciplined, not reckless. He is explicit that growth without cash generation is a warning sign, describing how many immature companies fail to track free cash flow capacity and lean on the excuse that "give us a few years and the cash will come," which often simply doesn't happen ¹. He has also seen growth chased for its own sake backfire badly: a German portfolio company won so many projects it couldn't deliver on them, straining people and machinery, damaging its reputation, and ultimately forcing out its CEO ¹. The lesson he draws is that any growth plan must be "fully funded" from day one, since discovering mid-rollout that the money has run out is, in his framing, the worst possible scenario for a CFO to allow ¹.

This funding discipline is where his thinking is most distinctive and most consistent across sources. His governing principle is counterintuitive but plainly stated: "Je moet eigenlijk geld ophalen op het moment dat je het niet nodig hebt." ² He traces this instinct back to the 2008-09 liquidity crisis, which taught him that holding sufficient liquidity is existential for an investment company, and that Gimv's liquidity position at the time "made the difference" ². He puts real weight behind the principle: he pushed through a 12-year bond that bankers doubted was feasible, then proved them wrong. "De bankiers wouden het zelfs niet geloven dat we dat gingen kunnen doen. We hebben gezegd: 'Jawel, we kunnen dat wel.' En het is ons gelukt." ² The payoff was a bond portfolio with an average coupon under 3 percent, a direct dividend of raising capital from a position of strength rather than need ².

He is equally precise about distinguishing liquidity from cash, treating them as different problems with different solutions. Idle cash sitting on the account is, in his view, a cost relative to portfolio return targets, so Gimv manages capitalization through bank lines rather than cash hoarding, deliberately optimizing the gross-net return spread ². The same anti-leverage logic extends to how Gimv structures its portfolio companies: it keeps them at deliberately low leverage, not primarily as a defensive cushion against setbacks but so they have the resilience to seize opportunities when they arise, a stance he contrasts with peers who lever up purely to juice equity returns ².

Vande Capelle's account of his own role is unusually self-aware about scope and boundaries. He describes an investment company CFO as carrying two distinct priorities that diverge from the classic CFO job: monitoring and translating portfolio company performance into valuations and results, and guaranteeing sufficient funding for the investment firm itself ². He is deliberate about not encroaching on portfolio companies' own finance functions, noting wryly, "Je zou kunnen zeggen dat er hier tientallen CFO's rondlopen bij Gimv," and instead finds value at the portfolio level in more informal, collective ways, such as running a WhatsApp group of portfolio CFOs during COVID to trade practical tips ². He extends the same non-interventionist logic to how Gimv organizes deal teams, insisting on end-to-end ownership from sourcing through diligence to exit within a single team, specifically to avoid the conflicting agendas that arise when separate deal and diligence functions exist ². And when it comes to exits, he holds his organization to a standard of exactness: "Op het moment dat wij een bedrijf verkopen kunnen wij ons ook geen enkel fout permitteren." ²

A related and recurring theme is patience as a strategic asset rather than a constraint. Gimv's "anchor" investments, structured with fifteen-to-twenty-plus year horizons and dedicated funding, are explicitly designed to remove the classic private equity pressure to exit within five to seven years, freeing the firm to pursue value creation trajectories that don't produce immediate returns ². He frames this in almost civic terms: "Wij beseffen dat voor het uitbouwen van Europese groeikampioenen dat je af tijd moet nemen." ² This patience pairs with a specific thesis about where growth actually comes from in the current environment, pointing to non-obvious digital enablers, such as two portfolio companies laying public electricity, sewage, and digital networks in Germany and the Netherlands, whose order books are full for two years out, constrained only by materials and people, not demand ².

On technology in his own function, he takes a measured, tool-not-replacement stance. Digitalizing the financial close cut portfolio-status reporting time from ten to twelve days down to day three after closing, freeing capacity for actual analysis rather than data assembly ². But he is careful to frame artificial intelligence as an aid rather than a substitute for judgment: "AI is voor ons ondersteunend in plaats van vervangend. En die combined intelligence blijft wel heel belangrijk." ¹ Across both appearances, the throughline is consistent: growth is the mandate, funding discipline and liquidity foresight are the mechanism, patience is the strategic edge, and the CFO's job is to enable all of it rather than simply audit the results after the fact ¹².