Herman Wielfaert (°1966), CEO
Through Freshwater bay management BVBA
Herman.Wielfaert@creafund.be - +32(0)9 272 62 00
Herman joined Creafund as CEO mid 1999 and is board member at VHC, Beddeleem, Aalterpaint & Purna. Herman has been previously involved as board member at Ghistelinck Group, Transics International & IBt.
Herman started his career in 1988 as corporate finance specialist at ALSK (now BNP Paribas Fortis). Herman subsequently worked from 1991 till 1999 for the Daimler-Benz Group, during which he took up the CEO role for Daimler-Chrysler Capital Services Belgium and The Netherlands, active in alternative financing techniques (tax lease and rentals) for the Daimler-Benz products in shipping, aircraft, and railway assets.
In addition to this activity, Herman has been a director with the Belgian Venturing Association for a number of years and he is active as an independent director at the Desimpel family holding, at NV Biobest (Biofirst Group) as well as the Floridienne Group and at NV De Bree. As from Sept 2012 he is a member of the Advisory Board of the Swedish W-Family Office.
Kenneth Depuydt, CFA (°1981), Investment Director
Through Defiman GCV
Kenneth.Depuydt@creafund.be - +32(0)477 86 80 39
Kenneth joined Creafund end 2018. Kenneth obtained his master's degree in applied economic sciences at UGent in 2003. He completed in 2004 the masters program in financial management at Vlerick Leuven Gent Management School. In 2008, Kenneth became CFA (Chartered Financial Analyst) charterholder.
Kenneth gained private equity experience since 2005 for both Fortis Private Equity and Buysse & Partners, for which he successfully cooperated in closing several private equity transactions and he managed diverse portfolio-companies in realising their growth plans. Kenneth gained operational and financial experience as a financial manager at a Belgian group of SME's during 2009 - 2012.
Kenneth is guest lecturer at Vlerick Leuven Gent Management School since 2013 on the topic of financial modelling and for the Belgian Venturing Association Academy on the topic of valuation. Kenneth completed both the Guberna courses Director Effectiveness and Board effectiveness in 2017.
Ruth De Wulf (°1982), Investment Director
Through Octolon BV
Ruth.Dewulf@creafund.be - +32(0)468 11 60 41
Ruth De Wulf obtained a Master’s degree in Applied Economics from University Ghent and Sorbonne University Paris after which she worked in the finance industry in New York, Luxembourg, Paris and London. In the UK, whilst working in investment banking, she also attended London Business School, co-founded her own property development company and brought 2 daughters into the world. Having spent 15 years working for J.P. Morgan, followed by RBS and ultimately HSBC, Ruth returned to Belgium at the end of 2019.
She joined Creafund, both as a shareholder and investment director. As part of her role, Ruth is constantly searching for target companies to establish a stake in, negotiate strategic partnerships with its leaders and steer those businesses to success via active board involvement.
Ruth completed both Guberna courses Director Effectiveness and Board Effectiveness in 2020 and is currently a board member at Purna Female Healthcare and chairwoman of both Sofics and Coeman Packaging.
Veerle Vervaeck (°1978), CFO
Veerle.Vervaeck@creafund.be - +32(0)497 40 49 08
Veerle joined Creafund in 2023 after taking CFO roles in different companies of multiple sizes in a variety of industries. In 1999, she started her career as finance manager in the stock quoted group Bertelsmann AG (Germany). The Belgian subsidiary grew in a few years’ time from less than 20 to about 60 people through a buy and build strategy. It is here, early in her career, that Veerle had her first exposure to M&A.
In 2007 she joined Cerba HealthCare (France). Her common sense and dedication to understand what the industries and markets are about, were the drivers to evolve from finance manager over controller to CFO, serving 2 CEO’s of 2 different subgroups in Belgium: Cerba HealthCare Belgium (clinical laboratories) and Cerba Research (clinical research). In this role, she was responsible for M&A, restructuring, corporate finance, reporting, legal, tax and treasury.
After 11 years serving one single group, she decided in 2018 to change her career to become a value accelerator for several shareholders and/or investors. In this period, she took a key role in the turnaround of 2 SME’s which culminated in successful exits by the end of 2022.
Brenda Knockaert (°1965), Executive Assistant
assistant@creafund.be - +32(0)9 272 62 00
Brenda joined Creafund in 2021. For 21 years she worked in an international environment. During 14,5 years she handled, often complex, shipping files in the maritime sector. In 2002 she joined the e-commerce sales department of the Thomas Cook Belgium group for nearly 6 years. Looking for a change, she started working at a law firm specialised in assisting high net worth clients. For 11 years she guaranteed that all non-legal matters ran as smoothly and efficiently as possible.
