Young Professionals: Tijmen Janssen (Ortec Finance)
This special was originally written in Dutch. This is an English translation.
The world in which investors operate has become more complex and unpredictable in a short space of time. Geopolitical tensions, technological developments and structural transitions are increasingly setting the agenda. Financial Investigator asked Tijmen Janssen, a young professional and Consultant in Climate Scenarios & Sustainability at Ortec Finance, how he experiences these developments in his day-to-day work.
By Daan Nijssen
To what extent has increased geopolitical complexity affected your profession?
‘In 2026, geopolitical tensions will be central to the financial world. Policy choices can change from day to day, meaning that traditional, stable assumptions may no longer suffice. For investors, this means lower (real) growth, higher inflation and rising risk premiums.
The increasing uncertainty is mainly causing higher volatility, a world where markets are under stress, correlations are rising and diversification is less effective. This has major consequences for the strategic decisions of institutional investors and requires extra attention in risk management.
We are increasingly focusing on the importance of multi-crisis scenarios, in which geopolitical and climate risks are considered in conjunction with one another.
Geopolitical conflicts are also multidisciplinary in nature: they affect macroeconomics, energy security, international trade, technological rivalry, institutional risk management and security policy. At the same time, economic fragmentation, climate risks, migration flows and security shocks reinforce these dynamics. The result is a so-called polycrisis. Think of the coincidence of high inflation, geopolitical trade tensions and extreme weather conditions. Each effect is complex on its own, but in combination they are potentially disruptive. In this context, there is a greater need to combine traditional risk models with narrative-driven stress scenarios to make portfolios resilient. Scenarios should not only include quantitative parameters, but also describe the specific characteristics of geopolitical tensions.
In my work at Ortec Finance, we are increasingly focusing on the importance of polycrisis scenarios, in which geopolitical and climate risks are considered in conjunction. Building robust scenario architectures and explicitly quantifying these risks is necessary for the current risk management of institutional investors. Only through this integrated approach can investors prepare for a world in which uncertainty is increasing and resilience is essential.’
Read the original special in Financial Investigator magazine
