Overstone Spotlight
Harco van den Oever: CEO & Founder
As CEO & Founder of Overstone, how did your career thus far inspire you to start the company?
I started my career in investment banking - in emerging markets debt - which gave me an insight into the importance of risk and the dynamics of inefficient markets. It also allowed me to live in London, Hong Kong, Singapore, New York, and São Paulo, which shaped my perspective by immersing me in completely different cultures.
I caught the entrepreneurial bug early on, co-founding the UK’s first online mortgage broker. After selling the business to a UK-listed company, rather than returning to banking, I decided to follow my passion for art and joined Christie’s as an intern. I spent twelve wonderful years there, working alongside incredibly talented and passionate specialists and engaging with some of the world’s most prominent collectors. I eventually became the Global Managing Director for the Impressionist and Modern Art department.
During that time, I made two observations that ultimately led to Overstone. The ‘art as an asset’ space felt constrained by the same issues I had encountered in banking: without proper tools to measure risk, institutional participation and subsequently market growth was limited.
Additionally, when discussing valuations with specialists, it became clear how much of their judgement relied on data. I saw an opportunity to bridge art, data, and finance in a way that had not been done before and to open the door to a much larger and more transparent market.
Why is Overstone in a unique position to address the intersection of art and finance?
The founding of Overstone was built on several important core principles.
Our service offering had to solve the problems faced by banks, insurance companies and wealth managers when considering art as an asset class. So, we started from a First Principles basis by spending a lot of time with risk managers, credit officers, underwriters and collectors to understand the fundamental concerns of these institutional players. We built our data tools and services from scratch in response to their needs, which required the highest level of seamless interplay between our data and art teams.
Our team and processes had to be at par with the level of sophistication and oversight of our clients. Therefore, we decided to become FCA-regulated and obtained both ISO27001 as well as USPAP certification. This took a lot of effort, but paid off handsomely when interacting with our clients.
This, combined with the deep network that we have built within the art, finance and insurance ecosystem now puts us front and centre to become the main player in this space.
What is next for Overstone in 2026?
We are all very excited about the future. We have secured strategic partnerships with businesses such as Addepar, the leading wealth reporting platform, Previsico, a flood risk analytics company and Cytora, a risk digitisation platform. This will extend our reach and enhance our offering in the market. We are also expanding into other asset classes such as wine, watches and classic cars and we plan to open an office in New York. Lots to do!
...and finally, if any artwork could hang on your wall, which one would you choose and why?
A tough question because my tastes run from Cycladic art to the ultra-contemporary. But one artist who I have followed ever since my first contemporary sale at Christie’s is Jenny Saville. Her visceral portrayal of the human body, simultaneously shocking and exquisitely painterly, struck me from the start and has stayed with me ever since.
