Global Corporate Venturing Rising Stars Awards 2017: Ilonka Jankovich

The best nominations for Rising Stars often come from peers in the same sector who recognise the work done as they reflect on what they themselves could have done better with more support from senior management.

So Ilonka Jankovich, partner at the Randstad Innovation Fund (RIF), the corporate venture fund of Randstad, the second-largest human resources provider in the world with about $20bn in annual revenue, was praised by her peers in the services sector.

Since RIF’s launch in March 2014, Jankovich has been responsible together with Paul Jacquin for managing the fund and is on the board of four – Vonq, Brazen, Gr8 People and CrunchR – out of its 12 deals.

Six of those dozen deals came last year, including US-based talent recruiting platform Wade & Wendy, which raised $4m in its seed funding from a consortium also including US-based instant communication technology provider Slack. Jankovich said RIF had also invested in Coffreo and “did another one but that will be announced only this year”.

Randstad also acquired one of RIF’s portfolio companies, the freelance platform Twago, and as result is now offering a freelance management system.

Jankovich said of the deals: “For Randstad the learning was tremendous. It gave valuable input to the strategy of the Randstad Group.

“We have been able to build partnerships with the portfolio companies which have been a success from a commercial point of view and, as a result, portfolio companies developed good insight in the staffing industry. Introducing our clients to portfolio companies and developing joined solutions have been high on the agenda.”

She added: “As a strategic corporate venture fund, RIF is building a portfolio of early-stage, HR technology investments. RIF invests in companies which are at

the forefront of technology or transforming the talent acquisition and workforce management industry, hence boosting external innovation within the Randstad Group.

“The goal is to combine Randstad’s expertise and reach with entrepreneurial spirit and technological excellence.

“Having been an entrepreneur myself in the HR industry I realised that technology will have a massive impact on our industry.

“When I got the opportunity to start a fund for Randstad monitoring the HR tech developments on a global basis and making investments in the space I was thrilled.

“To get a proper understanding what is happening in the space and what kind of impact it can have on Randstad is intellectually challenging. Making the right investments from a strategic and financial point of view is balancing act which requires deep knowledge of the industry and business sense. I am intrigued by this balancing act.”

But it is a balancing act that must be in the entrepreneurs’ interests, she added. “The exact goals of a corporate fund could be clearer (strategic versus financial) set up upfront.

“The Chinese walls between investment and the operations are to be guarded. We have to keep high ethical standards. The CVC should protect the interest of the startup companies.”

But this ethical clarity and transparency is perhaps no surprise as Jankovich had been lawyer, working for six years for magic circle firm Clifford Chance in Amsterdam, London and Budapest, before starting her own law firm in the Netherlands.

Then, after 10 years as a lawyer, she started Legal FlexForce, which became the largest legal recruiter on the continent and acquired in 2001 by Monster/TMP Worldwide. Monster was last year being acquired by Randstad for $429m.

After the sale of Legal FlexForce, however, Jankovich said: “I decided together with my family [she has three sons] to move to Hungary to discover my roots. I established the specialist recruitment firm ProfiPower in 2004 and sold it 2010 to Randstad.”

Once installed at Randstad she rose quickly, becoming the country manager of Randstad Hungary then setting up RIF.

But Jankovich is also an angel investor and on the board of Exact, a cloud financial software company acquired by Apax Partners.