The best way I can introduce Lieven is through what happens after a customer conversation. He does not return with a vague request to make the product easier or more commercial. He returns with the exact point where an owner hesitated, the term an adviser interpreted differently, the document that was missing and the decision the conversation could not yet support. That precision is his contribution to Upswitch. Lieven leads our M&A practice and market work, but his role is larger than sales or partnerships. He makes sure the system remains connected to the people who have to use its conclusions in a bank meeting, an owner discussion or a transaction process.
His formal title is co-founder and M&A lead. In practice, that covers the relationship between product and market: how owners describe their concerns, what accountants and advisers need before they can rely on an analysis, how transaction concepts should be explained and which parts of a workflow require professional judgment. Upswitch can automate collection, organisation and calculation, but it cannot decide that human context is irrelevant. Lieven is responsible for keeping that context present without allowing it to become an excuse for an opaque answer.
A background in Benelux SME M&A
Before and alongside the formation of Upswitch, Lieven worked across Benelux SME M&A as an adviser and operator. The canonical Upswitch team record identifies the areas that remain central to his work: deal structuring, EBITDA normalisation, earn-out negotiation and the work that follows a letter of intent. These are not abstract finance topics. Each one is a point where two parties can look at the same company and still disagree about what the figures mean, which risk belongs to whom and what must happen before a transaction can move forward.
That experience gives him a particular sensitivity to translation. Owners speak in years of effort, customer relationships, people and the amount they believe the business should make possible next. Buyers and advisers translate the same company into sustainable earnings, concentration, working capital, transferability and transaction terms. Neither language is wrong, but decisions suffer when the translation is hidden. Lieven’s work is to make those layers meet. He asks what a term means for the person signing, what evidence would make it defensible and which part of the answer remains a negotiation rather than a calculation.
His public professional profile identifies Upswitch M&A as his current work and places him in the Ghent region. We intentionally keep this profile to facts supported by that public record and the canonical team registry. The previous draft went further, turning unverified personal history into a dramatic founder story. That is not necessary. Lieven’s relevance to Upswitch is visible in the work he owns today and in the disciplines he brings to it, not in a claim that cannot be independently checked.
Why the problem needed a market and M&A perspective
Upswitch starts from a simple imbalance. The largest financial asset for many SME owners is the company, yet the condition and value of that company are often discussed only when an external event creates urgency. At that moment, the underlying information may be fragmented and the owner has to learn transaction vocabulary while also making a consequential decision. Software can organise evidence earlier and make recurring analysis affordable. It still needs a clear understanding of the moments in which the evidence will be used. Lieven brings that understanding into the product from the market side.
He also keeps our language honest. An estimated range is not a sale price. A normalisation is not automatically accepted by a buyer. A strong report does not remove negotiation, and a platform does not replace the relationship between an owner and a trusted adviser. These distinctions matter because a product can easily overstate what it controls. Lieven’s responsibility is to make sure we explain the usefulness of the system without erasing the human, legal and commercial work that remains around it.
The essay the 99 percent of businesses M&A forgot sets out the broader reason for building this infrastructure. Most companies do not have a continuously maintained transaction team, and most owners should not need one merely to understand the business they already run. Lieven connects that belief to the real routes through which owners seek help: their accountant, a corporate-finance adviser, a bank, a lawyer or a direct conversation when a specific event makes the question urgent.
What Lieven is responsible for today
Lieven leads the M&A practice around Upswitch. That includes shaping how transaction concepts are represented, reviewing whether owner-facing explanations reflect market practice and bringing professional judgment into workflows that should not be fully automated. He is the primary owner of conversations involving transaction readiness, deal structure, normalised earnings, earn-outs and post-LOI work. The goal is not to turn every customer into a transaction. It is to ensure that, when a transaction question appears, the product does not confuse a general indicator with the evidence a real process will require.
He also leads market relationships. Accountants, fiduciaries and M&A advisers see different parts of an owner’s situation and enter at different moments. Lieven works on how Upswitch supports those roles without claiming their mandate. An accountant may provide the most reliable financial history. An adviser may test adjustments and transaction assumptions. The owner supplies operational context and decides what outcome matters. A useful system should make collaboration clearer, not flatten these responsibilities into one generic user.
Research and methodology are another part of his role. The team registry names Lieven as an author of the Upswitch Multiples Index methodology and its research updates. Public market information is useful only when readers understand its level: a sector reference is not a company-specific conclusion, and an observed multiple does not explain all the differences between two businesses. Lieven’s contribution is to keep the market interpretation attached to the data, explain what a comparison can support and prevent a reference point from being presented as a promise.
The operating principles he brings into the company
- Use the owner’s language first. Technical terms are useful only after the underlying decision is clear.
- Separate fact, interpretation and negotiation. A product should not present a commercial judgment as if it came directly from the ledger.
- Make the weakness actionable. Naming owner dependence or customer concentration matters only when the owner can see how to investigate or reduce it.
- Respect professional roles. Software can improve preparation and shared evidence without pretending to replace advice, diligence or negotiation.
- Bring specific market evidence back to the product. A concrete hesitation or failed handoff teaches more than a generic request for simplicity.
Those principles make Lieven impatient with vague category language. Owners rarely wake up wanting a new platform category. They have a named concern: a bank said no, an offer arrived, a key employee may leave, a successor is uncertain or the company still depends on them for every decision. He pushes us to start there. The analysis may eventually include valuation, transferability, financial normalisation or deal preparation, but those concepts should serve the concern rather than replace it with internal product language.
He is equally careful about certainty. A market conversation rewards confidence, while responsible M&A work often requires conditions and ranges. Lieven helps us hold both demands at once: be clear about what the evidence says and equally clear about what it cannot decide. This is not cautious language for its own sake. It prevents an owner from confusing a planning indication with cash at closing, or treating an improvement estimate as if the market had already paid for it.
How our founder roles work together
Lieven and I approach the same problem from different starting points. He begins with the owner, adviser or transaction and asks what decision must become clearer. I begin with the evidence, system behaviour and technical methodology and ask what can be supported consistently. He tests whether the output is usable in a real conversation. I test whether another person can trace how it was produced. Neither test is optional. A reproducible answer that nobody can use is unfinished; a persuasive answer that cannot be reproduced is unsafe.
The collaboration is most useful when a request sits between those perspectives. A customer may ask for one simple score. Lieven clarifies the decision the score is meant to support. I examine whether the available evidence can carry that compression. Together we decide whether to show a range, ask another question, separate several signals or keep professional review in the flow. The result is usually less theatrical and more useful. That pattern is the core of our working relationship: market clarity and technical integrity correcting one another before a claim reaches the owner.
You can read Lieven’s view of that partnership in his introduction of me. We chose the cross-byline because roles are easier to understand through trust than through self-description. This article states what I rely on Lieven to own. The companion article states what he relies on me to own. Together they describe one operating model rather than two isolated biographies.
What Lieven is building for owners and advisers
Lieven is building the connection between a product and the professional work around an owner. That connection includes the questions asked before a calculation, the language used to explain a weakness, the evidence an adviser needs to review it and the handoff when a planning question becomes transaction work. It also includes knowing when not to turn a concern into a sales process. An owner may need a clearer business, a stronger management layer or better reporting long before a sale is appropriate. The product should help make that work visible without forcing every path toward a deal.
He is also helping build a shared market vocabulary. Terms such as sustainable earnings, owner dependence, transferability and deal structure become useful when the people around the table mean the same thing and can point to supporting evidence. The article the accountant as a distribution layer explains one part of that network. Accountants and advisers are not merely channels. They are trusted participants whose context and review can make the owner’s information more useful. Lieven’s job is to design collaboration that respects that trust.
The long-term ambition is a market in which owners can understand and strengthen a business before urgency removes their options. That cannot be delivered by software alone. It requires reliable data, clear methods, professional review and distribution through people owners already trust. Lieven owns the market-facing work that keeps those pieces connected. His contribution is not a dramatic origin story. It is the repeated discipline of bringing real decisions back into the product and making sure the product returns something a real person can use.
How to follow or contact Lieven
The maintained overview of Lieven’s current Upswitch responsibilities and published expertise is on his canonical team profile. His public professional profile is available on LinkedIn. For conversations about SME M&A practice, owner questions, adviser collaboration, transaction readiness or market methodology, Lieven is the natural first contact. The team profile remains the source of truth for his role at Upswitch and links the articles and research he contributes to the same public Person identity.
Frequently asked questions
What is Lieven Plaetsier’s role at Upswitch?
Lieven is co-founder and M&A lead. He leads the M&A practice, market relationships, owner-facing explanations and the connection between product workflows and the professional work of accountants and advisers.
What M&A subjects does Lieven work on?
His canonical profile identifies deal structuring, EBITDA normalisation, earn-out negotiation, post-LOI processes, adviser distribution and the interpretation of the Upswitch Multiples Index methodology.
Does Upswitch replace an M&A adviser?
No. Upswitch can organise evidence, support repeatable analysis and make explanations clearer. Professional advice, diligence, negotiation and legal decisions retain their own mandates and remain human responsibilities.
Where can I find the canonical Lieven Plaetsier profile?
Use the Upswitch team page at /en/about/team/lieven-plaetsier, with the locale changed as needed. It is the maintained source for his current role and links to his public LinkedIn profile.
Upswitch is the M&A infrastructure layer for the European SME economy. Defensible valuations and structured transaction matching for the lower mid-market.