We are excited to welcome Maxime Vanderstichele as CFO at 6 Degrees Capital.
Maxime brings a rare blend of financial expertise, operational know-how, and a deep passion for leveraging automation and technology - exactly the kind of perspective we value as we continue building scalable systems to support our founders.
He joins us after several years as an independent consultant in venture capital and private equity, where he set up and managed technology-driven finance and operational functions for multiple funds and a start-up across industries including biotech, medtech, and quantum. His work has spanned the full breadth of fund operations, giving him a holistic view of the industry.
Maxime began his career in 2013 through AXA’s international management traineeship before moving on to AXA Bank Belgium, where he worked closely with the CFO. In 2019, he launched his consulting career, supporting both funds and start-ups in building the operational and financial foundations they needed to scale.
He holds a Master’s degree in Business Economics from the University of Ghent, an LL.M. from the University of Hamburg, and an MBA from INSEAD, in addition to being a Chartered Financial Analyst. Having worked across several countries, Maxime brings not only expertise, but also a truly international perspective to his role.
We couldn’t be more excited to have him on board. Welcome, Maxime!
How has the CFO role changed over the years?
The role of the CFO in VC is no longer what it once was. For decades, the job was defined by precision – accurately delivering numbers, closing the books, and crunching the data. Important work for sure, but mostly invisible. The CFO lived in the background.
Today, we see a very different picture. With markets shifting faster than ever, and portfolios spanning geographies and industries, the role of the CFO is being redefined. Firms need more than clean spreadsheets. They need judgement.
CFOs are stepping out of the back office and becoming strategic and financial partners for the firm. They’re not just record-keepers, but decision-makers that help to guide leadership. They help shape strategy, drive change, assess and manage risk, streamline processes, improve efficiencies, manage stakeholder communications, and uncover insights others might overlook. They are translators between data and narrative, between the balance sheet and the big picture. In many ways, they’ve become the firm’s financial partner - close enough to leadership to help steer, not just support.
The rise of AI and automation has accelerated this shift. Reconciliations, reporting, and compliance - once time-consuming and repetitive, are increasingly handled by automation software. AI has made it possible to strip away the noise, freeing up CFOs with the one thing they always lacked: time. Time to focus on higher-order strategic thinking; time to think.
The modern CFO is no longer simply a steward of numbers. They are becoming strategic co-pilot to the firm.
How do you use automation tools in your day-to-day role?
In the past, most of my workday would be consumed by repetitive and time-consuming tasks: reconciling spreadsheets, pulling together investor reports, and digging for portfolio data that never seemed to be where I needed it. Although necessary work, this left little room for strategic thinking.
Now, with the rise of no-code tools, my role has drastically changed. There’s a whole universe of automation platforms at our fingertips - Airtable, Power Automate, n8n, to name a few.
Airtable is one of my most used tools and I use it to automate investor reporting, portfolio monitoring, valuations, ESG and even risk management. I’ve also used it to build internal systems to manage our portfolio in ways that once would have required endless manual updates. I’ve also managed to leverage automation with integrated data systems to streamline a number of workflows.
The effect is considerable - saving valuable hours that previously would vanish into reporting tasks. The investment team also no longer spends their time hunting for information as they have it when they need it.
The real benefit, though, isn’t just efficiency. It’s clarity and scalability. With automation handling the noise, we’re able to see the portfolio more clearly, such as our positions, our exposure, and where our time and capital should really be spent. These automation tools don’t just save time, instead they enable us to make better decisions and to scale.
Where do you see an opportunity for more automation in the industry?
The rise of AI and automation is opening doors everywhere in our industry. At first, most people thought about efficiency gains in the back office - fund reporting, reconciliations, compliance. But the real shift is bigger than that.
It’s starting to change how investors themselves work. Sourcing, once driven by networks and intuition, is becoming increasingly data-driven with many tools from Harmonic to Specter. Outreach, that used to be done manually, is now powered by automated workflows. CRMs have grown ever more sophisticated.
And it’s not just the investors. Startups are adopting automation too - sales teams automating outreach, marketing teams streamlining campaigns, and even drafting documents is getting lighter. Product development is also rapidly evolving - founders can now build and launch MVPs in a fraction of the time it once took.
The pattern is clear: automation isn’t just about saving hours at the margins. It’s about reshaping how both VCs and founders spend their energy, moving the work away from repetitive tasks and towards better decision-making and scalability.