Veronique Hördemann, managing partner and CFO at Future Energy Ventures, is one of our top 50 Emerging Leaders in corporate venturing for 2025.
Veronique Hördemann has spent her career working at the intersection of energy and finance, first in commodity trading in the oil and gas sector, where she was a risk analyst, before progressing to portfolio management of large utility companies.
Her move to CVC, which began with the launch of the investment arm of Innogy, a German utilities company that eventually merged with E.ON, was like “[being] thrown into cold water.”
“No one told us how to do an investment. It was all learning by doing and getting our own gut feeling for what [makes] a good investment or a bad investment. So the learning curve was quite steep.”
She was one of the founding team members of Future Energy Ventures, which was spun out from E.ON in 2023 and now operates independently, with the corporate-backed startups remaining in the portfolio. Its philosophy remains the same: it backs future energy enabling technology, the solutions for electrification of future cities, and the future technology that will bring these things into our lives.
“You need to have a good personal relationship with the corporate’s business units so people believe what you are saying”
She says that any new CVC unit trying to prove itself needs to make a compelling case for what its value to the corporate is. Establishing connections is crucial.
“You need to be there. You need to have good communication. You need to have a good personal relationship with the corporate’s business units so people believe what you’re saying,” she says.
“Bring these innovative ideas into the corporate in order to make sure that people can see this brings value.”
Any venture capital operation is very competitive and hard to sustain, which only adds to the pressure to be clear on your objectives and what the fund is delivering for its partners.
“We have seen a lot of corporate venture capital unit that came and [then] were gone quite quickly because of the changing set-ups within a large organisation and a resulting change in sentiments towards CVC activities.”
See the full list of Emerging Leaders 2025 here.
