Cas Dessers’ multidisciplinary approach to M&A matches KooKoo culture

As a triathlete and strategy consultant, Cas Dessers has spent most of his life learning to combine different disciplines rather than becoming dependent on a single strength. “Good advisory work requires analytical thinking, communication, expectation management, commercial judgment and relationship-building at the same time,” he believes.

This shared philosophy is why Cas joining KooKoo makes perfect sense, as everyone on the team contributes a unique combination of strong strategic framework skills, structured thinking and deep industry expertise. “The team is still relatively young, which gives me direct exposure to the partners and their experience from firms such as BCG and Kearney,” he says. “That means working closely with people who bring strong strategic frameworks, structured thinking and deep industry expertise.”

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Cas spent the last two and a half years at CASE Consultancy advising on everything from C-suite executives at Fortune 100 companies to startups. Before this, he was a strategy consultant at Sia for almost three years and prior to that, a risk consultant at Marsh for 10 months. During this time, he worked closely with various organisations to understand their challenges, where AI can create meaningful value and support the implementation of solutions that delivered growth.

“Enterprise sales teaches you to think client-first,” Cas shares. “You constantly have to understand what value the client actually wants to achieve, rather than simply focusing on what you are trying to sell.”

Moreover, it also teaches strong expectation management and the importance of trust; “because overselling almost always creates a mismatch between what the client expects and what you can realistically deliver”, he notes.

That discipline translates directly into advisory work. “Strong client relationships start with understanding the problem, agreeing on the expected outcome and being transparent about what success looks like,” Cas elaborates, adding that these interactions with clients are what excites him most about the new role.

“Because we work with different portfolio companies, every engagement comes with a different context, ambition and set of challenges,” he says. “Sometimes clients need a sounding board; in other cases, they need a deep dive into a market, product portfolio or strategic question.”

In the end, it goes both ways, Cas admits: “Clients benefit from our frameworks and outside perspective, while we continuously deepen our own industry knowledge through them.”

Navigating complex market dynamics
The type of work he will be doing at KooKoo fits very well with Cas’ M&A career goals: i.e. commercial due diligence, vendor due diligence and value creation for PE-backed companies. “For me, building that network and becoming a trusted advisor to those players is a key part of long-term success in the Belgian M&A market,” he points out.

“Belgium is a very relationship-driven market, with a significant number of family offices and investment groups shaping the ecosystem,” Cas elaborates.

“I want to understand who the key decision-makers are, what drives their investment choices and how they create value across their portfolios.”

He plans on using his multidisciplinary approach to achieve this. “Belgium has a particularly strong combination of talent, R&D capabilities and sector expertise relative to its size,” Cas says, referencing the pharmaceutical space as a good example, with several important R&D and production sites in Flanders contributing to the development of new medicines and technologies. “That underlying expertise makes Belgian companies attractive from both an investment and strategic acquisition perspective.”

At the same time, he adds, Belgium and Europe tend to operate in a relatively stable economic environment compared with the US (where interest-rate movements or market changes can rapidly trigger restructuring or major shifts in corporate priorities), ensuring a stronger focus on long-term value creation rather than short-term reactions to market movements. “For M&A investors, understanding that combination of stability, specialist expertise and local market dynamics is particularly important,” Cas emphasises.

Endurance wins the triathlon
Taking part in triathlons has been an excellent coach throughout Cas’s career. “It mainly teaches consistency and energy management,” he explains. “You cannot perform at maximum intensity every day; you have to understand when to maintain a steady pace and when it is necessary to push harder.”

For Cas, this translates well into M&A and consulting, where working hard is often the norm, but managing your energy over longer periods is equally important. “Ultimately, both environments reward preparation and consistency much more than occasional bursts of effort,” he sums up.

But even then, running with his dog has also taught him that: “Your training plan is not always entirely under control”.

This is where strategic problem-solving and client-expectation management come in, the two things that keep Cas energised when dealmaking.