After more than eight years at BlackRock, Philip Heeroma joined Moonfare in 2022 to build out our B2B presence in the Nordics.

Today, Philip is the Director of EMEA at EQT, a leading private markets firm headquartered in his homeland, Sweden.

He told us how his role at Moonfare led to an opportunity he couldn't pass up.

Let’s begin with why you left BlackRock, the world's largest asset manager, to join Moonfare.

Well, at BlackRock, private markets are part of the platform, but the firm doesn’t live and breathe it. I was interested in specialising, working for a player where private markets are the only thing that they do. What attracted me was Moonfare's position as a leader in that space.

What did you enjoy most about working here?

I very much enjoyed the people and the challenge of becoming an expert in private market funds at a company that is seen as a challenger in the broader ecosystem.

I also liked the fast-paced environment. There are lots of things happening all the time and I had the opportunity to get involved in a variety of projects. I think all those things combined made it an attractive place to work.

You mentioned the people at Moonfare. What makes our team unique?

It’s the depth of investment credentials from people like Steffen, Magnus and the investments team. And there’s a cultural mix of performance, collaboration and moving fast, with a very strong team and team spirit.

What was the most valuable skill you took away?

I think it was the private markets experience. I went from what I would probably call ‘a high-level generalist’ at BlackRock to joining Moonfare where I became much more well-versed in private markets.

The second aspect of it was tapping into Moonfare's relationships with many GPs and seeing how different they are. Each GP has their own way of working and culture. I found it very interesting. That experience has really helped me.

So, why did you decide to leave Moonfare?

It's pretty simple. I'm Swedish and EQT is a Swedish GP. It was a life ambition of mine to work for EQT and work in Stockholm.

EQT is a company that I've admired for a long time and the opportunity just came up unexpectedly. To me, it was like realising a dream of mine and I couldn’t say no.

Final question: If you could give one piece of advice to a new Moonfarian, what would it be?

I think it’s to network as much as possible. There's an extreme breadth and depth of exceptionally talented people at Moonfare with really interesting backgrounds and stories.

There's a strong sense of teamwork, too. So I think by networking, you can quite quickly align with people on things to potentially do together.

At Moonfare, being a nimble and relatively young company, you can have an impact and actually see those projects through. So I think it's about networking and coming in with an open mind.

Thank you for sharing your perspective and story with us, Philip.