Building Strategy beyond the deal: Jens Pauwels joins Eight Advisory to accelerate its BeNe ambitions

Jens spent the last 10 years growing from a young graduate into a director-level adviser at his first employer – a Big Four firm. He describes the time as “defining” in shaping him as a professional: “I was given the opportunity to work on a broad range of strategic and transaction-related assignments, as well as building long-standing relationships with colleagues and clients.”

While many would argue that leaving such a long tenure behind is not the smartest career move, and others contend it’s long overdue, Jens doesn’t believe there is one correct career model. “Staying with one firm for an extended period can be extremely valuable, if you continue learning, taking on new responsibilities and actively creating opportunities for yourself,” he points out:

“I am naturally persistent and deeply committed to my work and the people around it. That mindset shaped my career from the beginning, and it's exactly what is pushing me to build something new at Eight Advisory.”

He explains that the main advantages of a longer tenure are the depth of the network you build, the trust you earn and the opportunity to develop within an organisation that knows your strengths. As that trust grows, you typically get greater responsibility and more freedom to sharpen your role. “Over the past ten years, I worked with different clients, sectors, colleagues and leadership teams. I also evolved through very different roles, from analytical delivery to project management, team leadership and commercial development,” he shares. “In that sense, one organisation can still offer several distinct professional environments.”

On the other hand, the potential downside of a long tenure is the comfort zone you gradually develop. “Familiarity creates confidence, but it can also narrow your frame of reference. You may stop challenging established ways of working or underestimate how much you can learn from a different environment,” he cautions.

For this reason, Jens proposes the more relevant question should be whether the environment continues to stretch someone, rather than how long that person should stay with one employer. “A move becomes valuable when it creates a new learning curve, introduces different perspectives and forces you to build confidence again in an unfamiliar context,” he cites as the reason behind his move to Eight Advisory, too.

“The most visible difference is focus,” Jens says, explaining that, while a Big Four firm provides a very broad range of services, that breadth also creates a much larger and more complex organisation. Eight Advisory’s roots are specifically in transactions, restructuring and strategic transformation, with strategy connecting investment decisions to value creation and execution.

Moreover, he explains that Eight Advisory can move quickly from identifying an opportunity to bringing together the right expertise and supporting execution: “Its scale makes it relatively easy to find and mobilise the relevant colleague, methodology or credential across offices and countries.”

The firm operates with an international mindset that Jens says still feels connected and entrepreneurial. “From my first day, the firm’s DNA was clear; we know where we are differentiated, what we want to be recognised for and in which situations we can add the most value,” he adds. “That creates a focused and credible storyline for clients to follow.”

Focus, clarity and flexibility as strategic factors
One lesson that stays with Jens from the last decade is the value of focus and clarity – especially during times of uncertainty. “You can only explain clearly to clients what your firm does if you have made deliberate internal choices about the capabilities, situations and sectors you want to prioritise. Commercial success starts with clarity,” he reveals.

Another lesson Jens takes into the new role is that advisory remains a people business and that a firm’s most important asset is its team. “In my new role, success will not be determined only by delivery or commercial performance but by our ability to build a team based on trust,” he says. “People who feel trusted, supported and connected are more willing to go the extra mile, and clients ultimately experience that commitment through the quality of the work.”

He has also learned that each career move mandates a change in behaviour: “Analysts primarily learn to deliver. Managers must learn to delegate without becoming either micromanagers or distant reviewers. Directors must combine commercial development, client leadership and team building. Progression is not simply about doing more; it is about continuously adapting how you create value for others.”

After completing an MSc in Industrial Sciences: Construction and Civil Engineering Technology at Ghent University, Jens deliberately added an MSc in Business Economics as well to combine the technical understanding of how businesses actually operate with the commercial and financial perspective. “That combination is exactly what allows me to move between strategic direction and operational reality today,” he explains.

Jens still uses his engineering knowledge to add value to clients today:

“Engineering teaches you to take a complex problem, break it down into manageable components and develop a structured solution. That discipline is highly relevant in strategy, where problems are rarely solved through a single analysis or perspective. You need to deconstruct the question, identify the underlying hypotheses and build an answer that is both comprehensive and logically consistent.”

As someone who enjoys working with tangible assets, physical networks, production processes, infrastructure and operational constraints – particularly in the energy, water, telecommunications, construction and industrial manufacturing sectors – Jens believes that a strategy only becomes meaningful when it is translated into clear choices, quantified initiatives, accountable owners and an executable roadmap the client understands.

Expanding the Strategy expertise at Eight Advisory
For Jens, the next 12 to 18 months will focus on just that; constructing a repeatable commercial pipeline, securing anchor mandates, strengthening Eight Advisory’s Strategy credentials and further developing project leadership within the team. “An important part of this ambition is to demonstrate how an integrated Belgian-Dutch (BeNe) Strategy practice can create additional value across client transactions, transformations and turnarounds,” he elaborates. Together with Rob van den Berg, Strategy director in the Netherlands, Jens is translating this ambition into three complementary priorities, each anchored in an event-driven client situation.

Read also: Rob explains why carve-outs are particularly relevant in the current environment

With transactions, the ambition is to position the Strategy practice as an integrated partner alongside Eight Advisory’s core transaction and restructuring services. “We want to help investors and management teams look beyond the historical financial baseline by challenging the investment thesis, equity story and underlying business plan, assessing strategic, commercial and operational assumptions, and identifying tangible value creation and synergy opportunities,” Jens explains. “Our role is to connect the transaction rationale with what will actually be required to deliver value after the deal, including integration, separation and the first 100 days.”

With transformations, the practice aims to act as a trusted adviser to CEOs and other C-level executives. “We do not want to stop at defining a strategy, target operating model or performance improvement plan,” he adds.

“Our objective is to translate strategic ambition into clear choices, quantified initiatives, accountable owners and an executable roadmap that management understands, supports and can genuinely use during implementation.”

Turnarounds will build on Eight Advisory’s established restructuring capabilities and senior expertise. “We combine strategic turnaround thinking with financial and operational restructuring: identifying the root causes of underperformance, assessing the available strategic options and translating the chosen direction into a quantified recovery plan or alternative strategies that protect the interests of our clients,” Jens says. “That plan must establish clear priorities, ownership and governance to stabilise the business, restore performance and create a credible path towards sustainable value.”

Across all three, the common ambition is to combine strategic direction with execution discipline. “Eight Advisory has always been strong in supporting clients at critical moments; being an important transaction, a big transformation of its organisation or a restructuring of its activities. Strategy is what connects those moments to the decisions that create value or protect it, explains Philippe Fimmers, managing partner at Eight Advisory Benelux. “Jens combines genuine sector depth with the ability to translate strategic direction into an executable plan, which is exactly what our clients are asking for.”

He adds that Jens’s arrival strengthens the company’s ambition to be a trusted partner to CEOs and PE investors alike, well beyond the transaction itself.

“Clients should not only receive a compelling analysis or presentation. They should leave with clear decisions, quantified initiatives and a practical roadmap that their organisation can genuinely implement,” Jens concludes.