As one of four Managing Partners at Mercier Vanderlinden, I’m responsible for the finance and IT side of the business, as well as for one of our investment funds. We only have three investment funds and two strategies, which allows us to be really focused and effective. I like to think of it as an ice cream parlour: some shops sell every different flavour of ice cream but at very average quality. We sell only vanilla and chocolate, but they’re the best quality on the market.

To put that in financial terms, we have one equities strategy with about 50 stocks, and we have one bonds strategy. All our clients’ assets fall into three funds, and as managing partners in the firm, we’re investors in those funds, too. This has a couple of major benefits for our clients. Firstly, their interests are aligned with our own: when they’re happy, we’re happy, and vice versa. And secondly, we make things very simple and efficient. For us, being decisive means choosing an investment solution that’s the best for our clients and at the same time being efficient and giving them great service. We saw that the partnership with Van Lanschot Kempen was going well, so in December 2022 we decided to step up a gear to realise gains in efficiency and service more quickly. It’s all about playing to your strengths, doing your best, taking a decision and then really going for it.