Nina Hoffmann von Holten was about to go on maternity leave for the third time when Level 20 met her in Copenhagen, where she had recently been made a partner at Trill Impact. She spoke candidly to Level 20 CEO Gurpreet Manku about building a career in private equity, outsourcing everything that isn’t family, and what the Nordic ecosystem still needs to learn.
There is a particular kind of composure that comes with having done something twice before. Nina Hoffmann von Holten, a partner at Trill Impact and mother of two, soon to be three, carries it naturally. She is expecting her third child, preparing for her first maternity leave as a partner, and is characteristically precise about what that means. “This will be the first time I go on leave as a partner,” she says. “And that is different.”
Nina’s story is, in some ways, a blueprint. She met her husband, Frederik, at business school. They moved to London together, entered investment banking in parallel, then crossed into private equity at roughly the same time. He is now a partner at Danske Bank within their alternatives investment division. Two high-octane careers, two children, and a household that runs, she’ll be the first to tell you, on a great deal of deliberate infrastructure.
I really try to think of it as outsourcing as much as I can in my life, so that when I come home I can literally throw my bag on the floor and spend time with the kids.
Making It Work
Ask Nina how she makes a dual-career household function and she answers without hesitation. “We have a lovely au pair who lives with us,” she explains. “We also have our Manny — we call him that, he’s a male nanny. He picks up the kids most days, takes them to their extracurricular activities.” And when both parents are travelling for extended stretches, grandparents are called in — flying in, she notes with evident warmth, to provide that extra layer of support. Neither set lives nearby and one lives abroad, so it takes planning — but when the family is in a pinch, they come, and she is deeply grateful that they do.
The language she uses is striking in its clarity. She does not romanticise the juggle. She engineers it. “I really try to think of it as outsourcing as much as I can in my life, so that when I come home I can literally throw my bag on the floor and spend time with the kids.” Quality over quantity, she suggests, is not a compromise — it is a strategy. “It doesn’t always work, but overarchingly it’s a good model for us.” It is a lesson she now passes on to the women she mentors. “You can have it all,” she tells them, “but you can’t do it all yourself.” The skill, she says, lies in being deliberate about where your own presence is most valuable — and be ok with outsourcing the rest.
What underpins all of it, she says, is the particular advantage of a partner who understands the industry. “I find it extremely helpful that my husband understands what I do.” Their dinner table conversations, she concedes with a smile, might strike outsiders as somewhat niche. “Some people might find us a bit annoying — that it gets a bit nerdy.” But there is something quietly powerful in that shared fluency: no need to explain the pressures of a deal process, no resentment when a flight is extended or a board meeting overruns.
It is here that Nina’s precision gives way to something warmer. Frederik, she says, is her biggest cheerleader — and much more than that. When her travel peaks, it is he who rebalances the family calendar, often at real cost to his own. Nina is wary of any suggestion that a woman needs a man to succeed, but she is equally unwilling to understate what a true partnership at home makes possible. “I genuinely couldn’t do this without him.”
London, Copenhagen, and the Question of Social Permission
Nina has navigated maternity leave across two very different cultural contexts — the UK and Denmark — and the contrast, she says, is significant. In London, she recalls, her NCT group offered a panoramic view of the choices available to new mothers, and crucially, all of them were treated as equally valid. Some women returned to work within weeks. Others didn’t return at all. “All of that and everything in between was socially acceptable,” she says. Curiosity, not judgement, was the dominant register.
“In my London NCT group, there were women going back to work after a few weeks. Some were never going back. And all of that was socially acceptable.”
Denmark’s parental leave policies are, on paper, among the most progressive in the world. But Nina’s experience points to a gap between policy and culture — a subtler social pressure that shapes how choices are perceived. It is a distinction that Level 20 is well-placed to illuminate. “We can publish data on what policies and practices are,” notes Gurpreet during their conversation. “But I think it’s really important for the network to hear about experiences.”
In Denmark, Nina says the system is brilliant for both mothers and fathers if you have a regular job from 8 till 3, meaning you can pick your kids up mid-afternoon. But for women like her, who work longer hours, she says there is a lot of judgement and ‘the mom guilt is insane’.
“The Scandi model works in terms of both mums and dads having equal parental responsibility and earning the same, but it is very rigid and a lot of women make the choice to step out of PE at that stage because the social pressures to conform are too great.”
Beyond the Policy
It is a pattern Nina believes the industry cannot afford to ignore. Retention, in her view, is the biggest challenge facing female talent in private equity — and the next frontier in seeing more women reach leadership.
Generous parental leave policies matter. What sets a firm apart is the willingness to apply them flexibly. It can even look different for the same person from one child to the next.
Generous parental leave policies matter, she is quick to say, but they have become a hygiene factor rather than a differentiator. What sets a firm apart is the willingness to apply them flexibly. “Every leave looks different,” she says. “It depends on your circumstances, your seniority, your team. Some people want to switch off completely; others want to stay engaged. The terms need to reflect that.” It can even look different for the same person from one child to the next.
Her message to funds is a measured one: keep raising the bar on firm-wide policy, but resist applying it strictly by the book. The more valuable question is how to make the arrangement work for each individual — particularly when the pool of senior women is still so small. Flexibility, after all, works best when it runs in both directions.
Staying Connected, Coming Back
Nina says her biggest regret is going back to work too soon after her first child. She took 5 months off but was attending Board meetings after 3 months and put a lot of pressure on herself. With the second child, she was on gardening leave and had 16 months off, her husband took three months and they spent time in Thailand. With this baby, she plans to take three months that are “as off as possible” — though she will remain available to her chairs and CEOs on important matters, and a new deal may yet keep the laptop open. Six months part time will follow, with no travel and board meetings joined via Teams. Frederik will take a few months of parental leave next year.
One of the practical anxieties that looms over any extended leave in private equity is the question of continuity — board seats, deal pipelines, portfolio relationships, networks. Greater seniority, Nina suggests, brings greater capacity to shape the terms of one’s own absence. As a partner, she will have more agency over how she stays engaged than she did as an associate director on her first leave. The flip side: a partner can rarely switch off entirely, whereas more junior professionals can often step away more fully, if on less of their own terms. And third time round, she knows exactly what infrastructure it takes to make it work.
The data collected by Level 20 reflects a broader shift in how the industry is managing this. Professionals are increasingly using designated ‘keeping in touch’ days during leave to maintain contact with portfolio companies and internal teams, an approach that serves both the individual and the firm. Flexibility, it turns out, is not simply a concession to working parents. It is increasingly a structural feature of how high-performing firms retain their best people.
“It helps to have ‘a kind internal voice’ that recognises the reality of what you are doing.”
Perhaps the most generous advice Nina offers is not about childcare, career planning or the exact length of maternity leave. It is about self-compassion.
Looking back on earlier stages of her career, particularly with young children, she says she would have been “a bit kinder” to herself. Some of the pressure she felt was external — the pace of private equity, the expectations of senior roles, the cultural assumptions around motherhood — but much of it was also internal.
For others navigating a similar path, her message is simple but important: build the support structures you need, be deliberate about the trade-offs you are making, but do not judge yourself against an impossible standard. There will be moments when the balance does not quite work. There will be phases when career, family and personal expectations all feel too heavy at once. In those moments, Nina says, it helps to have “a kind internal voice” that recognises the reality of what you are doing.
“You’re doing really well. This is hard what you’re doing — and you’re doing great. Keep it up.”
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ENDS
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Nina is a Partner at Trill Impact Advisory, focusing on Buyout. She has around 10 years of professional experience in private equity. Prior to joining Trill Impact, she spent nine years with IK Partners, most recently as an Investment Director. She has further experience as an investment banking analyst with Goldman Sachs in London, where she was part of the healthcare team. She also has experience as a board member from a number of private companies.
Nina holds a BSc in Business Administration & Commercial Law and an MSc in Finance & Strategic Management from Copenhagen Business School.
