My name is Pieter Dorsman and I was born and raised in The Netherlands during the years of post-war economic growth and social liberation, in other words the 60s, 70s and 80s. My family ensured there was no shortage of intellectual stimuli and through the many books at my parents and grandparents houses, the museum visits and tours around Europe it became clear to me that whatever I was going to do in life, it would be abroad.
So after completing my studies at the Erasmus Universiteit in Rotterdam, I joined the management development program of one of the City of London’s oldest banks, Barclays. Knowing that the final year of the three-year program would be in another foreign location I wasted no time to convince my superiors that Hong Kong was the place best suited to my talents. They agreed and after 2 years in London I joined the structured finance division of Barclays Bank in Hong Kong (in the investment banking arm of the bank which was then known as Barclays DeZoete Wedd, BZW), which in the 90s was reaping the benefits of Asia’s rapid economic growth. The learning curve was unique, many of the deals I had helped structure in the early 1990s became the subject of restructuring following the Asian currency crisis of 1998 by which time I had joined the Swiss banking behemoth UBS.
When UBS merged there was an opportunity to gently exit the banking world and embark on a new adventure. My wife Irene and I decided to take the route to clean air and space, something we both badly needed after our time in Hong Kong, a place for which we still have a deep love. Unhindered by any knowledge or previous visits, but full of still youthful adventurism we picked Vancouver, and more in particular the Sea-to-Sky corridor. In essence we were guided here to reinvent ourselves and start a family, not long after our arrival in Canada our daughters Nora and Maeve were born.
So from the early 2000s I set upon a course of reinventing myself and applying my financing skills to build my own business in advising, mentoring, investing in and at times just jumping into early stage technology companies. As I write this I must have worked with some fifty start-ups, arranged millions of dollars in financing, restructured firms that were faltering, advised on successful exits to bigger players and started my own fund. And yes, I did see a few of them fail spectacularly, but that as they say only contributes to the lifelong learning process that we are all on.
Alongside that my interest in the community grew. I chaired the PAC of my daughters' primary school in Lions Bay from 2007 to 2010, sat on Lions Bay's Tree Committee, chaired a community center taskforce and helped some local politicians navigate their way to elected office. More recently I was active as the Vice-Chair of the West Vancouver Arts Centre Trust, better known as the Kay Meek Theatre and from 2014 to 2018 I was school trustee at the West Vancouver Board of Education.
In my spare time I like to travel (see the photo page), ski, hike and read political biographies. I continue to have a deep love for Israel, Greece, Hong Kong and of course The Netherlands. In 2013, I summited Mount Kilimanjaro with the Summits of Hope team and came close to do the same in 2016 when trying to scale Aconcagua in Argentina. I also spend quite a bit of time in nearby Squamish where we have a horse.
So after completing my studies at the Erasmus Universiteit in Rotterdam, I joined the management development program of one of the City of London’s oldest banks, Barclays. Knowing that the final year of the three-year program would be in another foreign location I wasted no time to convince my superiors that Hong Kong was the place best suited to my talents. They agreed and after 2 years in London I joined the structured finance division of Barclays Bank in Hong Kong (in the investment banking arm of the bank which was then known as Barclays DeZoete Wedd, BZW), which in the 90s was reaping the benefits of Asia’s rapid economic growth. The learning curve was unique, many of the deals I had helped structure in the early 1990s became the subject of restructuring following the Asian currency crisis of 1998 by which time I had joined the Swiss banking behemoth UBS.
When UBS merged there was an opportunity to gently exit the banking world and embark on a new adventure. My wife Irene and I decided to take the route to clean air and space, something we both badly needed after our time in Hong Kong, a place for which we still have a deep love. Unhindered by any knowledge or previous visits, but full of still youthful adventurism we picked Vancouver, and more in particular the Sea-to-Sky corridor. In essence we were guided here to reinvent ourselves and start a family, not long after our arrival in Canada our daughters Nora and Maeve were born.
So from the early 2000s I set upon a course of reinventing myself and applying my financing skills to build my own business in advising, mentoring, investing in and at times just jumping into early stage technology companies. As I write this I must have worked with some fifty start-ups, arranged millions of dollars in financing, restructured firms that were faltering, advised on successful exits to bigger players and started my own fund. And yes, I did see a few of them fail spectacularly, but that as they say only contributes to the lifelong learning process that we are all on.
Alongside that my interest in the community grew. I chaired the PAC of my daughters' primary school in Lions Bay from 2007 to 2010, sat on Lions Bay's Tree Committee, chaired a community center taskforce and helped some local politicians navigate their way to elected office. More recently I was active as the Vice-Chair of the West Vancouver Arts Centre Trust, better known as the Kay Meek Theatre and from 2014 to 2018 I was school trustee at the West Vancouver Board of Education.
In my spare time I like to travel (see the photo page), ski, hike and read political biographies. I continue to have a deep love for Israel, Greece, Hong Kong and of course The Netherlands. In 2013, I summited Mount Kilimanjaro with the Summits of Hope team and came close to do the same in 2016 when trying to scale Aconcagua in Argentina. I also spend quite a bit of time in nearby Squamish where we have a horse.