Tom Van de Voorde

Who they are

Tom Van de Voorde is Managing Partner & Head of Smart Industries at Gimv — a published poet who translates Wallace Stevens and Tomaž Šalamun into Dutch alongside running a €2.2 billion private equity portfolio.

Person

Tom joined Gimv in 2007 when it was already an established Belgian investment house running management buyouts and growth deals — and he's been building the franchise from inside ever since. He came up through commercial engineering at KU Leuven, then an MBA at Chicago Booth, and cut his teeth as an investment banker at Bank Degroof and NIBC before moving to the buy side. The arc is classic: elite Belgian engineering education, US business school, boutique IB, then long-tenure private equity — but the through-line is industrial and technology conviction, now crystallised in his role heading Gimv's Smart Industries platform. He rose through Head of M&A before reaching Managing Partner, and currently sits on the boards of Cegeka, Mega, Summa, Grandeco, and Impression International, with past exits including Trustteam, Xeikon, Luciad, and Vandemoortele. Alongside all of that, he's a serious poet — published in Dutch with Em. Querido's Uitgeverij since 2020, featured on Versopolis and Poetry International, and a translator of Wallace Stevens, Michael Palmer, and Slovenian poet Tomaž Šalamun. He presented his poetry collection 'De elementen' at VIERNULVIER in Gent in 2025. Possibly — the combination of deep analytical discipline and sustained literary practice shapes a working style that is more patient and language-precise than the typical PE partner.

Company

Gimv's most recent public update, from May 2026, reported a portfolio value above €2.2 billion, an unaudited NAV of €56.70 per share at 31 March 2026, and Q1 portfolio returns of 3.9%. The firm has been actively reshaping its strategy: in January 2026 it announced it would stop making new Life Sciences investments, concentrating instead on Consumer, Healthcare, Smart Industries, Sustainable Cities, and its Anchor program. The same period saw the completed sale of its majority stake in ALT Technologies to CCL Industries, while Gimv Anchor disclosed a 5% shareholding in specialty-chemicals and food-ingredients distributor Azelis. Portfolio activity has been brisk — Equine Care Group's US entry, Sofatutor's acquisition of SchoolMouv, BioConnection capacity investment, the Variass–AME combination into Metis Group, and a reinvestment in the Bugaboo–Joolz combination were all reported in the same window. Gimv also put in place a new €400 million revolving credit facility and reported €600 million total liquidity.

Market

Gimv operates as a listed European private equity and investment firm, competing with vehicles like Kinnevik, Bure Equity, HgCapital, Georgia Capital, Molten Ventures, and Antin Infrastructure Partners. The firm describes itself as a recognized market leader across four investment platforms, though it operates at a scale — roughly 60 portfolio companies — that sits below the largest pan-European buyout houses. Gimv's May 2026 trading update flagged geopolitical uncertainty, higher energy costs, inflation, weaker consumer confidence, and supply-chain disruption as the key risks bearing on portfolio demand and profitability.

Network

Tom reports to Koen Dejonckheere, Gimv's CEO, and collaborates with portfolio company boards including Cegeka, where incoming CEO Koen Deryckere was preparing a next growth phase as of May 2026. His translation work brought him into collaboration with Staša Pavlović as co-translator on Tomaž Šalamun's poetry.

Koen Dejonckheere· CEO, Gimv
Koen Deryckere· Incoming CEO, Cegeka (Gimv portfolio company)
Staša Pavlović· Co-translator, Tomaž Šalamun poetry

How they likely show up

Long tenure at Gimv since 2007 — nearly two decades at one firm → likely thinks in portfolio cycles and multi-year company arcs, not quarterly optics.
Progression from investment banker (Bank Degroof, NIBC) through Head of M&A to Managing Partner → comfortable owning both the analytical and governance layers of a deal, not just one side.
Active board member at Cegeka, Mega, Summa, Grandeco, and Impression International simultaneously → operates in a high-context, multi-stakeholder mode and is used to switching frames across industries.
Published poet and literary translator (Wallace Stevens, Michael Palmer, Tomaž Šalamun) alongside a full-time PE career → Possibly — brings unusual precision with language and long-form patience to environments that often reward speed over depth.
Chicago Booth MBA combined with KU Leuven commercial engineering → trained to blend quantitative rigour with strategic framing; likely expects the same from counterparts.

Conversation tips

→ Reference a specific portfolio company or exit by name — he has board-level depth on Cegeka, Grandeco, Luciad, and others, and responds better to named specifics than sector generalities.
→ The pivot away from Life Sciences in January 2026 is a live strategic signal — asking what that means for Smart Industries deal flow is a sharper opener than asking what Gimv does.
→ His poetry work is not a quirk to tiptoe around — it's a serious parallel track. Mentioning 'De elementen' or his Stevens translations shows you've actually looked, and it distinguishes you from every other banker in the room.
→ He has sat through hundreds of pitches over nearly two decades; skip the market-size slides and get to the specific industrial or technology thesis early.
→ He presented publicly at a 'From Start-Up to Exit' panel — if you're in a founder or growth-company context, that framing (journey from entry to exit) resonates with how he structures value.

Toolbox

Openers

Open on Gimv's January 2026 decision to stop making new Life Sciences investments — it's a sharp strategic bet that narrows focus to Smart Industries and a few other platforms, and it's recent enough to have real current-state implications for his mandate.
Mention 'De elementen' — his 2025 poetry collection presented at VIERNULVIER in Gent. He's a published poet with Em. Querido's Uitgeverij and a translator of Wallace Stevens into Dutch; almost no one in his PE world leads with that, and it signals you did more than read his LinkedIn.
Reference the Variass–AME combination into Metis Group or the Bugaboo–Joolz reinvestment from Q1 2026 — both are concrete, recent portfolio moves in his wheelhouse that show you've read the trading update, not just the firm's homepage.

Discovery questions

With Gimv stepping back from Life Sciences entirely, how does the Smart Industries thesis evolve — are you looking for different entry stages or different industrial sub-sectors than you were two years ago?
You've sat on boards across industrials, tech, and consumer — Cegeka, Grandeco, Impression International — at the same time. How do you calibrate the right level of board engagement when each company is at a different growth stage?
You translate Wallace Stevens and Tomaž Šalamun into Dutch alongside running a PE portfolio — does that practice change how you think about the language in an investment thesis or a board room?

Avoid

Don't treat the poetry as a quirky aside or a small-talk filler — it's a serious, decades-long parallel career with named publications and a 2025 public launch, and casual condescension about it will close the conversation down fast.

Make it yours