About Ilonka

I am a lawyer by trade, turned into an entrepreneur by passion. I built and sold two HR agencies, the first one to Monster/TMP Worldwide and then the next one to Randstad. Currently, I am co-managing the Randstad’s 50M EUR corporate fund investing in HR technology companies, meanwhile I am on the Board of several companies.

Recently I joined Rubio Impact Ventures as Venture Partner, an early stage impact fund. My focus will be on People tech with the mission to create sustainable livelihoods, equal access to education and jobs/ economic opportunities 

Please find my biography in two lengths below: a shorter read for the busy visitors, a longer one for my curious visitors.

#short

I am of Dutch and Hungarian origin. At the beginning of my career, I was for 10 years an M&A lawyer at Clifford Chance and I had my own law firm. After that, I founded the legal recruitment firm Legal FlexForce based in The Netherlands, sold in 2001 to Monster. In 2003 I moved with my family to Hungary and started a recruitment business in Hungary. ProfiPower became the market leader and was sold to Randstad in 2010. I am an angel investor.

In 2013 the corporate venture firm of Randstad; Randstad Innovation Fund was started. I am managing the fund together with Paul Jacquin. The Fund has done 20 investments to date all in HR tech including: Vonq, Crunchr, Pymetrics, Brazen, Rolepoint, gr8people, and Hackerrank.

Currently, I serve on the Boards of Crunchr, Brazen, and Shiftboard  I am also on the Board of Exact a business software solution provider, acquired by KKR in 2018. Last year I joined the Board of Flowtraders a leading global liquidity provider listed on the Dutch Stock Exchange.

This year I joined Rubio Impact Ventures. Rubio is an impact venture fund with a thematic focus on 3 thematic areas: circular solutions, people power, and healthy living. I am leading the People Power team.

I am passionate about what education and work can do to enhance people’s lives.  I love to support businesses that are able to make a systemic impact and have ambitious business goals.

#long

I am of Dutch and Hungarian origin. My father is Hungarian and my mother is Dutch. I grew up in the Netherlands but for more than 15 years I have lived in Budapest, Hungary. I am married to the super creative and original author Jaap Scholten and we have three fantastic sons, who are all very different, choosing their own paths in life and getting along very well. At the moment they are working in different places in the Netherlands. I feel blessed with my family (my extended family, too) and love to be with them. I am also crazy about horseback riding, which is a kind of meditation for me and allows me to connect with nature.

Traveling and living in different countries is in my blood. I speak Dutch, English, Hungarian and German, and travel for my current activities extensively especially to London, Berlin, New York, and San Francisco. I love to connect with people and contribute to their well-being, from both a personal and a business perspective.

Looking back, I definitely have a 7-year itch, meaning I change my career on an average of every seven years. I started my career as a lawyer and worked in that profession for 10 years. During my legal career, I founded the legal recruitment business Legal FlexForce in the Netherlands (acquired by Monster/TMP).

Adventure lured, as a family, we moved to Hungary, where I started the professional recruitment business ProfiPower (acquired by Randstad). In the past few years, I have been active as an angel investor and as a corporate venture capitalist for the Randstad Innovation Fund. I also have several board seats at large companies and start-ups. I am an expert in Worktech and starting to become an expert in the digital strategy settings.

Moving to different areas in my career has been very exciting. I have been lucky that companies, people, and clients have accepted me as a newcomer, so I have been able to learn quickly as a result. Training in several expert topics such as board programs (at Nyenrode), venture capital and product management (both at Berkeley), team coaching, and digital strategy, have also kept me up to speed.

My insights are based on my experience over the last 30 years and my knowledge in an extremely fast-changing environment, especially in the tech world. I have board seats at several HR tech start-ups (Crunchr, Shiftboard, and Brazen) and a board seat at Exact, a cloud business software company recently delisted and acquired by KKR (private equity).

I am passionate about what the right work can do for people. My contribution to society is focused on giving people work and education. I am actively involved as a mentor to the Fund for Youth Employment (https://fundforyouthemployment.nl/)which aims to create work for 200 000 young women and men in Africa.  I strongly believe in giving the underprivileged in our society a better chance to get jobs or to start a business, and elevate themselves from their situation. It should be possible to do that at scale, especially due to online education becoming more and more affordable and the support of some of the great technologies emerging.

I am a lawyer by education and my first job was as an M&A lawyer at Clifford Chance. I learned about M&A transactions, financing documents and corporate contracts. I gained knowledge that proved to be invaluable later in my career. Clifford Chance offered me the opportunity to work in their offices in Amsterdam and London, and I was one of the people to launch the Clifford Chance Budapest office. Having worked 6 years for Clifford, I started my own law firm in Amsterdam: Vrisekoop, Majoor, Van Spaendonck, Brainich, Jankovich.

This period brought me a lot of skills. Drafting or reviewing any documentation, and assessing litigation risks, are part of these core skills. I really enjoyed the dynamics of making transactions. However attention to detail, a very important trait as a lawyer, has never been my strength, so I was happy to move on.

I realized that motherhood and being a partner at a lawfirm was not easy to combine, so I wondered why was not there some high-level project work available for lawyers who want to work part time. As a result I started Legal FlexForce in the Netherlands, which became the largest (permanent and contracting) legal recruiter on the continent. Legal FlexForce was sold to Monster/TMP Worldwide in 2001. After the sale I became the country manager of TMP and I was responsible for the integrating of several businesses Monster/TMP Worldwide bought in the Netherlands.

After our move to Hungary, I started the professional recruitment ProfiPower, which became the leading recruitment firm in Hungary and was acquired by Randstad in 2010.  After the acquisition I became the country manager for Randstad in Hungary and I successfully integrated my own business with Randstad’s.

This period of entrepreneurship was the most rewarding in my career. I really enjoyed the teams we were able to build. I had the pleasure of working with some very talented people. We built a brand, we had fun, we listened to our clients, and we did our utmost to do the right thing, and place people in the jobs which were right for them.

After I sold my second start-up, I set out as an angel investor and made some investments – some of them successful, some not so much. There was a steep learning curve, and as a minority investor, you can give advice but not set the agenda. The failure rate is high, something that I found difficult to accept.

I realized how difficult it is to pick the right investments, and that I missed working in a team. My knowledge lies in the HR industry. In this industry, HR tech has emerged in the last few years so the idea was born to start an innovation fund for Randstad. Together with Paul Jacquin we started the Randstad Innovation Fund (RIF), focused on HR tech. (Minority) investments in HR technologies ensure future, innovative solutions to make processes more efficient and bring fresh answers to HR challenges. Our goal is to create an ecosystem where Randstad’s expertise complements entrepreneurial spirit and technological excellence.

We have done 20 investments so far: Brazen, Checkster,  Twago, Checkster, Crunchr, Gigwalk, gr8people, HackerRank, Pymetrcis, Rolepoint, Cornerjob, Montage Vonq, Wade&Wendy, Coffreo, Goodwall, Shiftboard, Ally, Validates ID, Alice, and Zapinfo. We exited 10 investments so far.

At this point in my life, I feel that all is coming together now I have joined Rubio Impact Ventures. I can combine my experience in doing investments in Peopletech with my passion for making an impact by giving especially the underprivileged access to education and jobs. When selecting our investments we will assess whether the entrepreneur really has the internal drive to make an impact. The impact should lead to a measurable impact: for example how many people got a decent income, as a result, got access to education which resulted in an increase of income, and were able to access a loan to finance their education?  We go on a joined journey to explore where impact can be made and which goals can be set. Apart from the impact, we expect entrepreneurs to have a clear vision of how their business can grow and be successful.

The Nyenrode executive New Board program taught me a lot about what the role is of a non-executive board member. Now that I have been on boards for several years I cannot tell you how different each board seat is. It is about listening and asking the right questions – but when do you interfere or leave a board because it does not fit your values?

For three years I was on the board of the NS (the Dutch National Railways), a Dutch state-owned company responsible for most of the train traffic in the Netherlands and involved in concessions in several European countries. It was an interesting and challenging time, as with a state-owned company politics need to be balanced with business rationale.

I very much enjoyed – and still enjoy – being on the boards of some of the RIF portfolio companies: Brazen, Shiftboard, and Crunchr. I bring industry knowledge and the know-how of building a business.

I also have a board seat at Exact, a cloud business software company that was delisted five years ago and was acquired by the private equity firm Apax. Last year KKR became the new owner, and I stayed on the board. There is a lot in common between fintech and HR tech. The lines between HR, legal and fintech are becoming blurred, making it possible to introduce intriguing new business models to the market.

I enjoy speaking in public, especially on the topics of HR tech and venture capital. I also like being part of the jury on start-up competitions, which I have also done many times – and I am always amazed by people and their ideas.

The difference between business and private life to me has always been blurred. Working is a way to make myself useful and to achieve certain goals. Perhaps sometimes I am far too focused on the goals, so I try to enjoy the path more and more.

I have very old friends from my childhood and many dear family members, but I also consider many people I have worked with, or still do, as my friend.

Now that the children need me less, I want to spend more time with friends – as I love to hear their personal stories.

And if you have just read all of this, you probably qualify as a friend. 🙂