The 8th Annual Benelux Institutional Forum brought the region’s leading pension funds, insurers, and investment consultants to the Sofitel Legend The Grand Amsterdam on May 11-12, 2026. Designed for pensions, endowments, foundations, insurance companies, and investment consultants, the forum delivered two days of candid conversation on the themes reshaping Benelux portfolios in 2026.
The Netherlands’ transition to its new pension system anchored much of the agenda. So did real assets, private credit, global equities, and the steady push to integrate sustainability without sacrificing returns.
This is a closed-door, invitation-only event. The sessions stay in the room. However, our Sidelines team was on the ground – capturing candid, unscripted insights straight from the sidelines.
🔥Request the agenda to get the speaker lineup and session topics for the Private Wealth Benelux Forum on September 17 at the Rosewood Amsterdam.
Our reporter Muskan Arora sat down with four leaders in Amsterdam, including the recipients of this year’s Lifetime Achievement and Strategy Awards. Here is what they shared.
Five dilemmas and a $100 billion question: Jack Julicher on the art of being a CIO
Jack Julicher, former Interim Executive Board Member for Investments at ABP and former Investment Director and CEO of a.s.r. asset management, was honored with the CIO Lifetime Achievement Award – and he used his keynote to push past the usual career retrospective.
The essence of being a chief investment officer, Julicher told the room, is knowing when to break from old ideas. He laid out five dilemmas facing allocators today: static strategic asset allocation versus total portfolio management, the merits and risks of market-cap investing in a shifting world order, and where AI fits in a portfolio.
His view on sustainable investing was direct: it is a seed already planted, and the current backlash is purely political. On AI, he urged patience, calling it too early to take a strong over- or underweight position on AI companies.
Asked the fun closer – what he would do with a bag holding $100 billion – Julicher did not miss a beat. First, find the rightful owner. Then advise them to build a total portfolio approach and pursue returns that are sustainable as well as strong.
A transformation, recognized: Martijn Scholten on shrinking the distance to the participant
Martijn Scholten, Co-CEO and Management Board member at MN, received the Strategy Award for steering one of the region’s largest fiduciaries and pension asset managers through a far-reaching transformation.
In his fireside chat, Scholten named the central challenge of the new pension system: the distance between the asset owner and the participant is shrinking fast. Participants now hold personal pension pots but still lack a clear line of sight into the decisions being made for them. Closing that gap, he argued, demands a narrative from pension boards that genuinely resonates and is understood.
On AI, Scholten described MN as a deliberate smart follower – investing attention and partnering rather than building alone, given how fast the field moves. He expects AI to shape both internal processes and investment decisions over time.
His favorite debate of the day? Real assets – an asset class where, as he put it, allocators can do something good for the real economy too.
Capital is coming back: Jorrit Arissen on listed, private, and the stranded-asset risk
Jorrit Arissen, Co-head of the Real Estate Team at Van Lanschot Kempen, joined Arora after a fireside on combining listed and private real estate – and led with a clear signal: capital is returning to the market.
Arissen explained why pairing the two makes sense. Listed real estate often acts as a leading indicator for private real estate. The two correlate closely over the long run, but the lower short-run correlation and higher listed-market volatility create genuine opportunity for investors willing to act.
Sustainability, he stressed, is now a differentiating factor in real estate, already visible in transaction cap rates and valuation premiums. Skip proper underwriting of transition and physical risk, and allocators face a real danger: stranded assets that become unsellable down the line.
The middle ground: Martha Brindle on enhanced equities and ESG
Martha Brindle, Senior Director in the Equities Manager Search team at bfinance, leads equity manager searches for Dutch pension plans and other institutional investors. She joined Arora after a morning panel on core equity efficiency and ESG.
Her focus: enhanced multifactor equities as a middle ground between active and passive. The approach, she explained, can address challenges found in both – integrating ESG objectives while preserving the efficiency and discipline of core equity exposure.
Brindle also pointed to the Lifetime Achievement keynote as a personal highlight, singling out the investment dilemmas raised – the long-term role of impact and sustainability, and total portfolio management versus strategic asset allocation – as especially topical for allocators today.
The conversations from Amsterdam are a snapshot of where Benelux institutional investors are focused as 2026 unfolds.
🔥Request the agenda to get the speaker lineup and session topics for the Private Wealth Benelux Forum on September 17 at the Rosewood Amsterdam.
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