Joris Mortelmans
Partner / CFO
Joris is an experienced CFO, formerly active in different sectors such as energy, telecom and pharma. He started his career at EY, to later take up leading financial roles in an energy company and a CMO. As CFO of the family office of Annie Vereecken since 2017, he further broadened his expertise and gained multiple experience in the field of investments.
Annie Vereecken
Founding Partner
Annie has been a groundbreaking entrepreneur since the beginning of her career. Via strong focus on data and innovation and PE-backed buy-and-build trajectory, she built a large clinical laboratory group, changing the landscape in the world of fertility and data handling along the way. After the acquisition of the laboratory group, she started investing in startups and scale ups in life science and actively driving innovation in healthcare.
Katleen Vandersmissen
Managing Partner
Katleen holds a PhD in Chemistry and started her career heading one of the R&D and QA labs of Umicore. She later joined McKinsey, focussing on strategy and M&A. As investment manager and head of the Health&Care department at institutional investor LRM, for 7 years, she knows the world of startups and scale ups in the life science sector inside out.
Herman Verrelst
Founding Partner
Herman is an experienced serial entrepreneur who successfully founded and sold 3 spin-offs of the University of Leuven. With the sale of Cartagenia to Agilent, Herman moved to California to lead a Genomics & Clinical Applications division of Agilent. He is the former CEO and current Executive Chair of Biocartis (BCART - EURONEXT), a molecular diagnostics company.
Raf Roelands
Investment Director
Raf has a decade of operational experience in the biotech sector and holds an M.Sc. in Biochemistry and Biotechnology and an MBA from Vlerick Business School. Subsequently, he spent more than 5 years at Korys, focusing on life science investments. He was involved with several young innovative companies and served as a strategic advisor for European and US-based investment funds.
Emke Goijens
Office Manager & Executive Assistant
Emke joined HERAN Partners in September 2020. As an experienced Office Manager and Executive Assistant she has worked in both the private and public sector. Emke is the administrative backbone of HERAN Partners and responsible for events and compliance. She holds a Bachelor in Communication Management and speaks Dutch, English, French and Spanish.
Geoffrey D'hondt
Investment Manager
Geoffrey joined HERAN Partners in January 2021. After gaining experience in the investment management industry at Gimv, he spent 4 years at Valiance Asset Management, a London-based VC firm with a focus on MedTech. He holds a Bachelor and Master in Business Economics (Corporate Finance) from Ghent University, Belgium and an Advanced Master in Finance (Corporate and Investment Banking) from ESCP Europe, France.
Filip Maes
Scientific Business Analyst
Filip joined HERAN in July 2022. He started as a consultant for a pharmaceutical CRO. For the last 4 years he worked for Chemelot institute for science and technology, a public-private technical validation company, located in the Netherlands. Within this company, he managed several medical devices and ATMP research projects and commercialized the outcome. He holds a Master in Tropical and Infectious Diseases from the University of Antwerp and a Master in General Management from the Antwerp Management School.