Los Angeles, California, United States
Steven Van Camp is the Founder and Managing Partner of Velde Equity, an operator-led special situations investment firm that partners with lenders, sponsors, and founders to revive challenged assets in the Industrial and Consumer sectors. With over 20 years of experience—including leadership roles at middle-market private equity and McKinsey’s Recovery & Transformation Services (RTS)—Steven brings an engineer’s mindset to value creation. He architects the firm’s investment strategy with a singular focus: underwriting the operational fix where passive capital falls short. A hands-on Operating Partner, Interim CEO and Board Director, Steven has led mandates ranging from complex distressed carve-outs to full-potential transformations. He moves beyond financial engineering by rethinking operating models to address root causes of underperformance. He leverages strong pattern recognition and an engineering mindset to deconstruct complex problems and architect full-potential performance.
Velde Equity is an operator-led special situations investment firm that partners with corporate, financial, and founding sponsors, as well as lenders, to revive challenged assets and elevate businesses with latent potential. Steven architects Velde Equity’s global investment strategy. He oversees the full deal lifecycle, with a distinct focus on operational value creation— specifically unlocking potential in highly complex situations.
Transom Capital Group is a leading operationally focused private equity firm that invests in companies in the lower-middle market. Our functional expertise, access to capital, and proven ARMOR Value Creation Framework combine with management’s industry expertise to create improved operational efficiency, significant top-line growth, cultural transformation and overall distinctive outcomes. As an Operating Partner at Transom Capital Group, I am responsible for Portfolio Company performance improvement, fulfilling my passion to help businesses achieve full potential.
As part of McKinsey's Transformation Practice, I led strategy development and performance improvement programs in world's most influential businesses and institutions, as well as in mid cap enterprises. Strategy, growth platforms, and innovation: - Led the delivery of a growth-focused transformation program at a $10B multinational conglomerate active in building equipment and solutions, addressing top line growth levers such as new product introduction, partnerships and salesforce effectiveness, while also pursuing margin expansion via procurement and engineering optimization, increasing EBITDA with $600M - Directed strategy and growth programs across clients in engineering & construction, shipbuilding, airline, and rail - Conducted synergy analysis and structured the integration for mergers in respectively animal health and telecom Operations, margin expansion and balance sheet optimization: - Established cost (and cash) focused transformation programs across media, insurance, healthcare, rail, airline, chemicals, and energy, driving impact through operations, procurement, engineering, G&A, real estate, and working capital - Headed the turnaround of a $1B shipbuilder in Europe, addressing liquidity and cash, and driving $125M EBIT expansion - Led the restructuring of a US territory, counselling senior clients on liquidity, mediation, and transformation opportunities Leadership & entrepreneurship: Founder and leader of distinctive McKinsey value delivery solutions, generating tangible client impact globally - Leader of McKinsey’s real estate diagnostic solution helping corporates obtain insights in real estate data and manage their footprint considering the ‘Future of Work’ and other evolutions - Global leader of McKinsey’s cash management capability building & behavior change program
Upon graduation as civil engineer, I joined my family business, active in building materials and technologies across the EU, Japan, and the US, to help manage its restructuring and lead the turnaround. - Managed liquidity and strengthened the balance sheet by divesting non-core assets and refinancing - Rolled out top line transformation strategy based on new product introduction and improved marketing & sales, targeting markets with relative pricing protection, and expanding network of channel partners, resulting in revenue growth of 250% - Reorganized business functions such as operations and sourcing, resulting in +40% reduction of direct costs over 3 years - Led strategic business model shift from production company to asset-light venture licensing out its proprietary technologies