Marianne Abib-Pech, an international finance executive, investor, and author. Marianne previously led the strategic repositioning and expansion of Shell Aviation, a $30 billion global business, and went on to found LTF Partners and co-found Transitions First.She is now leading the development of a new industrial capital platform targeting $300 million to support the commercialisation and scale-up of industrial deep tech.Marianne is also the author of The FT Guide to Leadership.
We cover the following in our conversation:
2:30 – Non-obvious patterns investors miss about industrial vs. software value creation (the "J curve")
5:12 – Why industrial investing requires underwriting an entire system, not just a technology
8:36 – Case study: AgriLoops, going from pilot to physical plant
10:55 – Where traditional VC breaks down for long-cycle, capital-intensive sectors
14:26 – The funding architecture problem and how to redesign it
17:11 – "Bits vs. atoms": the shift back toward industrial/physical investment
22:47 – Geopolitics: US-Iran, Russia, supply chain fragmentation reshaping capital flows
27:30 – Europe's opportunity to lead in industrial deep tech
32:10 – Lessons from Shell Aviation: process discipline, security of supply, collaboration over competition
35:53 – M&A in frontier markets: risk vs. perception of risk, pattern recognition over "intuition"
46:02 – The GE furnace analogy for continuous industrial systems
46:17 – Where AI creates real defensible value in physical industries (and where capital is mis-priced)
50:32 – Leadership in an age of AI and geopolitical uncertainty
51:35 – "It's courage" , one-word definition of leadership today
55:24 – Women in investing and cognitive diversity in deep tech
58:30 – Closing question: what's systematically underestimated — society's capacity to build
60:54 – Final thoughts
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