Helene Tiggelhoven
Strategic advisor, Human Capital Risk
I step in when human dynamics start to determine financial outcomes.
I work with investors, CEOs, founders and boards at the moments where strategy, leadership and capital converge.
Growth
Scaling organisations where leadership capacity must match ambition.
Acquisitions
Transaction moments where human capital shapes structure, price and outcome.
Transitions
Leadership shifts and succession where continuity of value is at stake.
Investment Decisions
Human Capital Due diligence that goes beyond the financial model.
The Vision
In private equity and growing companies, the numbers on a spreadsheet don't tell the whole story. The real risks come from inside: team leadership, how people work together, and company culture.
Financial plans show expected profits, but they miss the hidden issues that stop progress. Poor leadership, internal politics, and clashing cultures are unseen risks in every deal. These human factors decide if a company succeeds or fails to deliver on its promise.
To truly understand this, we need a different view—one that sees how people act as a key part of investment success. The best financial plans can't fix broken leadership teams or bad company cultures. Building lasting value means focusing equally on people and how things get done.
The cost of overlooking human capital risk is not abstract.
It is measured — in price reductions negotiated under pressure, in timelines that stretch without explanation, in integrations that consume the value they were meant to preserve.
Price Pressure
Unresolved leadership risk becomes a valuation argument — late in the process, with asymmetric leverage.
Delays
Processes stall when trust erodes or critical questions surface without satisfactory answers.
Renegotiation
Terms reopen. Conditions multiply. What was agreed becomes provisional. Momentum — and margin — are lost.
Lower Multiple
The gap between expected value and what a buyer is actually willing to pay due to perceived risk.
Failed Integration
Post-close, organisations that were not examined do not perform as modelled. The multiple compresses accordingly.
My Role
Independent. Strategic. Unambiguous.
I operate as an independent strategic advisor — not embedded in management, not responsible for execution, and not affiliated with any outcome other than clarity.
My function is singular and precise: to make visible what impacts value and decisions. I bring an external, dispassionate perspective to the human dynamics that those closest to a situation can no longer see clearly — or have chosen not to name.
Not to manage. Not to implement. But to illuminate what is already shaping the outcome — before it becomes the headline.
Engagement
Where I Can Be of Service
Every engagement is selective by design. I work with a small number of principals at any given time — ensuring depth, discretion, and undivided focus.
Strategic Advisory
Ongoing counsel at board and C-suite level on human capital strategy and organizational resilience.
Non-Executive & Board Roles
Independent perspective and accountability at board level, with a specific lens on talent and leadership governance.
Investor & Investment Committee Support
Embedding human capital review into investment decision-making — a discipline the best-performing funds have formalized.
Deal Diagnostics & Human Capital Reviews
Structured, time-bound assessments integrated into live deal processes and management reviews. See Human Capital Risk Scan.
Interim Involvement in Critical Situations
Selective hands-on engagement when a situation demands immediate senior judgment and operational presence.
Who I work with.
My practice is deliberately selective. The situations I engage are those where human capital risk is material, the stakes are unambiguous, and independent perspective creates genuine value.
Private Equity & Investment Firms
Funds conducting human capital due diligence, managing post-acquisition leadership risk, or navigating value preservation in portfolio situations where organisational dynamics have become a variable in returns.
Family Offices & Serial Investors
Principals who take concentrated positions and cannot afford the cost of a leadership miscalculation. Where the relationship between investor and organisation is direct — and the risk is personal.
Founders & Leadership Teams
Companies preparing for a transaction, navigating a transition, or standing at an inflection point where the quality of leadership decisions will determine the outcome of significant capital events.
If this is not addressed early, it will show up later.
In valuation. In negotiation. In integration.
The question is not whether human capital risk is present in a transaction. It is whether it is examined before it becomes the terms of the conversation — or after.
Human Capital Risk Scan™
Understand where value is at risk — before it shows in the numbers.
Helene Tiggelhoven
Strategic Advisor · Human Capital Risk
Strategic advisory in transactions and transformations. Focused on human capital risk and value preservation.
At moments where value is created — or lost.
For direct enquiries, please reach out by email: info@helenetiggelhoven.nl