My name is Mikan van Zanten. I was born in The Netherlands in 1975. When I was 8 years old my family moved to Taiwan, where we lived for about 4 years. Whilst there, I learned English as a second language and picked up an American English accent. I came into contact with many different cultures, and developed a taste for traveling. After Taiwan we moved back to the Netherlands, where I attended high school and subsequently university. I had a passion for mathematics, and wanted to make some money using this. I chose to pursue (and received) Bachelor’s and Master’s Degrees in Econometrics, with a specialization in Quantitative Finance, from Tilburg University. Later on I became a Chartered Financial Analyst, and subsequently a Board Member and then President of the Netherlands CFA Society.
I have worked in the financial services industry for 25 years. I started at a large pension fund, working for several years in the Private Equity Department. In 2000, I joined the Rotterdam-based asset management firm Robeco as a founder of its Private Equity business. Over the next 13 years, I was jointly responsible for building that business, and I lived in New York for several years. I then was the head of Robeco Luxembourg for four years, involved in managing investment funds investing in public markets. I have also been Chairman of several Alternative Investment Funds.
Finance is not the only thing I have been interested in. I loved reading books from an early age onwards, have always enjoyed playing sports, with a particular interest in volleyball and racquetball, and have been interested in self-development for over twenty years. I found, whether in my work or sports, that I was taking a particular interest in figuring out what issues someone is dealing with, and working with them to implement solutions to those issues. I realized in 2013 that I wanted to start doing that also professionally, and after completing an education therein, set up a coaching practice dedicated to that.
I reside in the Netherlands.