From Private Equity To Climate Tech Founder: A Tactical Guide
Your background in finance or consulting isn't a detour—it's your unfair advantage. Here’s a tactical guide to making the leap from a traditional career to building a high-impact company.
TL;DR: Jacqueline van den Ende leveraged her background in private equity to launch Carbon Equity, a platform for climate tech investing that has raised over €160M for its funds. This journey provides a playbook for founders transitioning from finance, building in new markets, and fundraising for mission-driven companies. The key is to trade the investor's mindset for a builder's, hire for adaptability, and master the art of storytelling for complex products.
Key takeaways
- Shift from an investor's "no" mindset to a founder's "how" mindset.
- Leverage your analytical skills, but unlearn corporate decision-making speed.
- When hiring in a new market, screen for a high "slope" and adaptability over credentials.
- For climate tech, sell the economic inevitability, not just the moral urgency.
- De-risk your career jump by building a small-scale "starter" project first.
- Master a 15-slide pitch that simplifies complexity and focuses on the core mission.
Your "Safe" Career Is Not A Detour. It's Your Unfair Advantage.
Many founders believe they need a pure startup background to succeed. They see careers in private equity, consulting, or banking as a detour from the real work of building. Jacqueline van den Ende’s journey shows why this is wrong. Her path—from a global upbringing and a top-tier private equity firm to launching a category-defining climate tech company—is a playbook for leveraging traditional experience to build something new.
Her story isn’t just inspiration; it’s a tactical guide. It shows you how to trade the investor’s mindset for the builder’s, how to launch in a market you don’t know, and how to fundraise for a capital-intensive, mission-driven business.
The Mindset Shift: From Finding Faults to Finding a Way
Working in private equity, like at Jacqueline’s former firm HAL Investments, trains you to be a world-class critic. Your job is to analyze, to find the flaw in the model, and to say "no" 99 times out of 100. You look for patterns and solve problems using established templates.
As a founder, this mindset is fatal. Your job is to have "unreasonable self-belief." You must stare at a problem with no clear solution and believe you can be the one to solve it. You have to think from first principles, not from templates.
The most common mistake founders with finance backgrounds make: They bring the investor’s toolkit to the founder’s job. They create 100-slide decks to analyze a two-way door decision. They hedge, they move slowly, and they try to de-risk everything in a world that is inherently uncertain. Your analytical skills are an asset, but only if you learn to apply them at startup speed.
How to De-Risk the Leap From a "Prestige" Career
Before launching a major venture, Jacqueline co-founded The Kleine Consultant, a non-profit student-run consultancy. This was not a distraction; it was a critical testing ground. It proved she could start something from scratch, rally a team, and build a brand—all with low personal risk.
If you’re considering the leap, don’t just quit your job. De-risk it with a "starter project":
- Build a small software tool for a niche you understand.
- Start a newsletter or community around a professional passion.
- Organize a local meetup or event series.
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