2018 Speakerss

Michael Dymond is  a member of the team managing APG’s allocation to private equity, He focuses principally on making primary investments in private equity funds, and has a specific focus on Europe. His role encompasses management of the global private equity funds portfolio in addition to manager selection, due diligence and monitoring of investments. He serves on numerous private equity fund advisory boards in Europe and the United States.

Jason is the Principal and CEO of Saint Leonards SFO, Monaco. He is head of the investment committee and he invests with/for other families and HNWI. He has 35 years investment experience and began his career in Investment Banking in trading currencies and derivatives.

Enika is an investment manager at CDC, focusing on direct equity investments in Financial Services across Africa and Asia. She has over 10 years of private equity experience spanning primary fund investing and direct equity across both developed and emerging markets.

Ekaterina Almasque is Managing Director of the Samsung Catalyst Fund in Europe, Samsung’s Electronics venture capital investment fund focused on core technology areas including smart machines, Artificial Intelligence, Internet of Things, digital health, data infrastructure and device level technologies. She was also a founding partner of a global private equity advisory firm specializing in high-tech growth companies with $1B+ markets in the technology and environmental sectors.

Based in EBRD’s headquarters in London, Michael  has more than 12 years of experience in making private equity fund investments within emerging markets. Within EBRD’s Equity Funds Team, Mr Bastholt is primarily responsible investments in Turkey.  EBRD’s Equity Funds Team is the largest private equity fund investor dedicated to the CSEE, CIS, SEMED and Central Asia regions, covering a wide spectrum of fund sizes and investment strategies; regional and country-specific funds, generalist and sector-specific funds.

Seonaid founded Sturgeon Ventures as a "single family office" in 1998 investing in public and private companies knows as a Venture Catalyst regulated by the SFA.   Sturgeon has now incubated over 150 start ups since this business model began and supported many approved persons.

Olivier advises private clients and family offices on their Private Market allocation, including Private Equity, Private Debt, Private Equity Real Estate and Infrastructure assets.

With over 25 years of experience, the Pictet Group is a pioneer in public and private alternative investments. Pictet Aternative Advisors’ private equity team currently manages USD 12 billion and its expertise spans across primary and secondary fund investments as well as co-investments. As regards to co-investments in particular, we have one of the longest standing co-investment track records in the industry, with more than 100 deals executed since 1992. As a whole, Pictet Alternative Advisors manages over USD 24 billion and our team is composed of more than 55 people. Maurizio Arrigo joined Pictet in 2014 as Head of Private Equity. Maurizio has 18 years of experience in Private Equity. Prior to joining Pictet, he was a partner at Quilvest where he co-headed the European investment team, focused on sourcing, executing and monitoring direct investments (both lead and co-investments). Previously, Maurizio led the venture capital team at Société Générale Asset Management (SGAM) and co-founded a start-up incubator subsequently acquired by SGAM. Before moving into Private Equity, Maurizio spent 8 years at Schneider Electric, where he held various management positions, such as plant manager and country manager. He began his career in strategic consulting as an analyst at Booz Allen & Hamilton. Maurizio holds an MS in engineering from the Ecole Centrale Paris and an MBA from the Harvard Business School.

LGT Capital Partners is an award-winning alternative investment specialist with USD 50 billion in assets under management. André co-leads the firm’s Private Equity Secondary practice. LGT Capital Partners has been active on the private equity secondary market since 1998 and has acquired more than 500 underlying limited partnerships representing original commitments in excess of USD 4.5 billion.

Francois is responsible for managing Coller’s global investment origination activities. He has sourced or managed a number of the firm’s investments, both direct and limited partner transactions.

Roni Elchahal leads the firm’s EMEA capital partnering efforts. He joined General Atlantic in 2007, focusing on investments in the firm’s Technology sector. He has also worked at CI Capital Partners where he helped source and execute middle market investments across various sectors, and at The Boston Consulting Group where he worked on strategic and operational projects across a variety of industries.

David has over 30 years of experience in private equity and infrastructure financing and serves on the board of directors of the Major Projects Association and is a member of the Institution of Engineering and Technology. In addition to his role at Capital Dynamics, he is also Chair of the Firm’s Clean Energy and Infrastructure Investment Committee in respect of certain existing investment mandates.

Simon Cook as been involved with the European VC industry since 1995 and co-founded Draper Esprit, which IPO’d on the London and Irish Stock Exchange in 2015, in 2005. He has been involved with a number of Europe’s most successful startups including Lovefilm (Amazon), Cambridge Silicon Radio (IPO), Virata (IPO), nCipher (IPO) and KVS (Symantec). He currently works with Trustpilot, Graze, Crowdcube, Perkbox and Podpoint.

Per Wimmer founded Wimmer Family Office in 2011. The current investment strategies of Wimmer Family Office are: 1) The Wimmer ETF Plus Strategy - Investment into ETFs across asset classes with CTA overlay aiming to achieve a low to medium risk profile with double digit returns. 2) Eastern European Commercial Real Estate. Focus on prime locations in Prague, Budapest and Bucharest. 3) Natural resources (mining, oil & gas, green energy) and hard assets, real estate, infrastructure, aviation and shipping. 4) Emerging Market Hedge Funds Investment Strategy - Investment into locally based Emerging Market funds with a strong track record spanning a minimum of three years. 5) Other opportunistic ad hoc investments. Per also founded Wimmer Financial in 2007, which is a merchant bank/corporate advisory firm specializing in natural resources (mining, oil & gas and green energy), real estate, infrastructure, aviation, shipping and project debt financing.

Five Arrows Managers is the Merchant Banking platform of the Rothschild Group, and a leading secondary fund, managing a €460 million focused on investing in mid-cap companies in Europe. Benoit-Olivier has been leading Secondary transactions across Europe for the past 15 years, with a particular focus on fund restructurings and team spin-offs.

Ana Maria is a Partner and member of the Investor Relations Team at Adams Street Partners. She works closely with clients in the development and monitoring of their private equity programs.  Additionally, she is involved in the portfolio construction and monitoring of the various FoFs and separate accounts.

Olivier has 21 years of private equity experience including 16 years with Ardian where he joined in early 2001. He realized investments between 20 M€ and 225 M€ and is Board member or observer of multiple investee company board.

John is the Co-Head of Ireland and Member of Investment Committee of Beechbrook Capital, a leading Pan-European Private Debt fund with multiple investment strategies across European funds, ranging from sponsored to sponserless  deals.

Christiaan focuses on small to medium sized deals and more complex situations. Christiaan provides liquidity to institutions and individuals seeking an exit from their private equity investments, including both limited partnership interests and portfolios of direct investments.

Ian founded Monte Carlo Capital in 2009, after a career in investment banking. Monte Carlo Capital initial purpose was to invest Ian’s asset in private deals. Over time, Ian created an eco-system of deal partners, co-investors and advisors to participate in deal sourcing, due diligence, financing and deal monitoring and mentoring. Ian is regularly the lead investor in the investment round. He is involved in each step of the deal, from deal sourcing, to due diligence, deal structuring, and often joins the board or the advisory board.

Mark is responsible for primary fund investments in Europe and is also involved in making secondary investments and co-investments. He is a member of ASI’s private equity investment committee and serves as an advisory board member on a number of leading private equity funds.

Benjamin is in charge of €1bn AUM Buyout & Growth Capital activity at Omens Capital. He joined Omnes as an Associate in 2006 and was then Director until 2013. Benjamin is also a member of Omnes’ Executive Committee.

Philip is Managing Partner of August and is responsible for the strategic development and the investment strategy of the business. August invests in the UK mid market and has expertise in building scale and high strategic value with its investee companies. He chairs the Investment Committee and he led the successful fundraising of August Equity Partners III in 2013 and its successor fund IV in early 2017.

JZ International is an industrial holding investment group that specializes in investing in and growing small to medium-sized businesses in partnership with founders and entrepreneurs and Martin is responsible for origination, due diligence, and portfolio financing.

Northleaf Capital Partners is an independent global private equity, infrastructure and private credit manager, with more than $10 billion in commitments under management on behalf of public, corporate and multi-employer pension plans, university endowments, foundations, financial institutions and family offices. Northleaf was formed in 2009 by the successful spin-out of the private equity fund investment arm of TD Bank, one of North America’s leading financial institutions. Northleaf has strong Canadian roots and a long, well-established track record. Matthieu is a Director at Northleaf and participates in all aspects of the firm’s private markets investment activities, with a focus on the origination, evaluation and monitoring of primary and secondary private equity investments.

Richard is Head of investments Benelux, France, & Italy and covers Schroder Adveq's investment activity for the European investment program.

Patrick Hennings-Huep serves as a Managing Partner at Beaufort Capital GmbH. Previously, he served as a Partner at Beaufort Capital GmbH. Mr. Hennings-Huep served as a Director of The Carlyle Group LP. He has gained professional experience at Cap Gemini.

Peter set up Candela Capital in 2003 to meet the distribution needs of small to mid-sized funds who want a personalised, long-term relationship with a distribution partner. His 25 years' of experience from Pantheon Ventures, InvestorForce, Fleming Asset Management and NM Rothschild & Sons gives him a unique insight into the needs of the institutional investor - be they pension funds, private banks, family offices, insurance companies or fund-of-funds.

Sarah established FFS, which supplies both preparation and placement services to alternative asset GPs. Sarah has extensive experience in positioning clients to secure and maximise traction with professional LPs  and has worked with  a wide range of specialist funds and markets.

Joaquín is heading EIF’s secondary byu-side activities. He has also managed and invested in Neotec Capital Riesgo, Portugal Venture Capital Initiative and the Mezzanine Co-investment Fund.

Gianluca is Partner of ELR LEX, an Italian law firm, with significant experience in several field of corporate law with a focus on M&A transactions and the structuring of private equity and venture capital deal. In the last 15 years , Gianluca has been involved in turn around operations in M&A transactions, in the establishment of private equity funds and in the structuring of investment transactions in the NPL and Real Estate sector.

Olaf is the Founding Partner of TopCap Partners, an International Placement Agent and Private Equity Secondaries firm. TopCap is highly specialized and focused on institutional quality managers, spin-outs and growth funds of excellent management teams, raising capital from institutional investors globally for these outstanding managers. TopCap is also a leading buy-side agent for Private Equity Secondaries. Olaf built the Secondaries buy-side agency business originally at Hedges Capital, his well-regarded predecessor firm since 1999. Prior to that, Olaf spent 16 years as Managing Director with Citibank in international postings. He served in executive positions in New York, Buenos Aires, Brussels, Dublin, as Chairman of Citibank in Vienna, Austria, and as Managing Director of Citibank Germany in Frankfurt. He graduated from the University of Hamburg with undergraduate degrees in business administration and economics and a Masters in Business Administration. He received his Ph.D. in political science from the Christian Albrechts University of Kiel. Olaf is a German and US citizen.

Benjamin Revillon is the Founder and Managing Partner of BEX Capital. BEX Capital is a pioneer in fund-of-funds secondaries. The firm is a leading buyer of limited partnership interests in fund-of-funds and secondary funds with about €200 million of AuM.

Ralph is a Principal within the Private Equity Team at Unigestion and covers European Private Equity investments for their award winning investment programs.

Jean-Pierre Di Benedetto co-leads the Italian office and the Investor Relation teamHe has over 20 years experience in Finance and Private Equity. Argos Wityu is an international Private Equity partnership with approximately 1bn Euro under management and offices in Luxembourg, Paris, Geneva, Milan, Frankfurt and Brussels.

Nenad Marovac has more than 25 years of venture capital and private equity investment experience in the technology and media sectors. He is the Founder and Managing Partner of DN Capital. Nenad is also the Chairman of the Venture Capital Board of Invest Europe and an active member of YPO in London and Berlin.

One of the founding partners of Mandarin Capital Partners, an Italian private equity firm, Lorenzo has about 30 years of experience in high profile financial institutions. He was previously Head of Operational Strategies at Sanpaolo Imi Group (now Intesa Sanpaolo). Lorenzo is author of various papers and co-author of books on various subjects in the field of economics and finance.

SVP Global is a global distressed debt and value investor with ~$8B under management, investing through both private equity and hedge fund vehicles. SVP invests across sectors, notably the industrial, infrastructure, energy and consumer sectors. Tony is focused on SVP's private equity investments where manages SVP's control and influence investments and helps lead new investments.

Dr. Ulf Klebeck is working as General Counsel at Montana Capital Partners AG (mcp). He is in charge of all legal, regulatory and compliance aspects of mcp’s private equity business, including fund structuring & regulatory governance of mcp's private equity investment platform. 

Tim has  over 25 years of healthcare private equity investing experience. He co-founded HealthpointCapital in 2002 and, prior to that, had spent more than 20 years in private equity and investment banking including as a founder of BPI Capital Partners, LLC.

Paul leads Unigestion's private equity investment team and is responsible for the oversight of primary fund investments, secondaries and co-investments globally. Unigestion is an alternative asset management firm with EUR 7 billion of assets under management, headquartered in Geneva with offices in London, Paris, New York and Singapore.

Olav is the Founder and Managing Partner of TempoCap and has been active in the venture capital industry for the past 18 years. TempoCap is a leading pan-European technology investment firm in the field of Secondary Direct Venture. TempoCap helps address the inefficiencies in venture capital by offering attractive and flexible solutions for sellers (entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, corporates, financial institutions and angels) as well as follow-on capital for companies to accelerate growth. TempoCap targets two types of deals: technology portfolio (secondary) or growth technology asset (secondary and/or primary).

Marcus Peter heads the Funds and Private Equity practice at GSK Stockmann Luxembourg. Prior to GSK Stockmann Luxembourg, Marcus  worked for a Luxembourg law firm from 2004 to 2016. Since 2017 he is a partner at GSK Stockmann in Luxembourg. 

C5 is a specialist technology investment group focused on cybersecurity, cloud computing and big data analytics with offices in Washington, London, Luxembourg and Bahrain. Andre serves on the boards of several cybersecurity companies including the Haven Group in Luxembourg, ITC Security in London and Omada in Copenhagen.

Neil Malik is responsible for managing the firm’s strategy, governance and investment activities. He is actively involved in the professional development of K1’s team and the management teams of K1’s portfolio companies. Since 2000, he has overseen over 120 completed transactions and serves on the boards of numerous K1 companies. Mr. Malik serves on the Board of Directors for Junior Achievement of Southern California, is an alumnus and board member for Sponsors for Educational Opportunity (SEO) and a member of Young Presidents Organization.

In 2008, together with his former partners, Paul started advising on private transactions then formed BlackFin Capital Partners which operates as an active and influential investor. Previously Paul was the co-founder of ProCapital group, an integrated securities platform. Paul also acted as CEO of Fortuneo, the retail online brokerage business of ProCapital. ProCapital was successfully sold to Crédit Mutuel Arkéa in 2006.

Fiona is responsible for IR  and fundraising.  Since becoming independent in 2005, Livingbridge have raised 5 institutional funds and manage more than £2bn for their investors across the platform. With 5 offices in the UK, US and Australia, the business is expanding its capability to invest in and support fast growth entrepreneurial businesses globally.

Ivan originally joined PAI, major European private equity house and  leading private equity investor in the French market,  as a member of the Investment Group where he was involved in a number of transactions including Elis. Late 2010 he joined the Investor Team.

Elias is responsible for directing Hermes GPE's growth investing globally.  He also manages the investment strategy function which includes global markets research, portfolio construction and exploring new areas in private markets. Elias is the portfolio manager of the Hermes GPE Environmental Innovation Fund, a specialist growth equity/venture capital fund focused on sustainable growth. He joined Hermes GPE in 2011 and is a member of the Investment and Management Committees.

Tarang is a Principal and helps in running Hamilton Lane’s fund investment activity across Europe, the Middle East and Africa.  His investment activity includes sourcing, leading diligences and adding value on advisory boards across private market sub-asset classes spanning buyouts, growth capital, venture capital and credit funds.  He is based in the firm’s London office. Prior to joining Hamilton Lane in 2011, Tarang worked in the Strategy Consulting, M&A and Valuations groups at PwC, serving the financial services, private equity and hedge fund industries.  Tarang also served as consultant to RBS, and worked in the equity derivatives trading departments of JP Morgan Chase and Deutsche Bank prior to that. Tarang received an M.A. and B.A. (Hons) from the University of Cambridge, U.K., in Economics.  He is also a qualified CFA charterholder and a CAIA charterholder.

Miia is a Founding Partner at Proxy, a Venture Capital firm with an in house design team which rebrands all of Proxy’s investments. Proxy’s focus is on innovative B2C startups, with a focus on Marketplaces, Apps, IP driven products and Blockchain. Miia has experience as an early stage investor in 16 companies via Proxy, and several others privately.

Itamar is the Founder of Argent, a start-up that focuses on providing safe and easy access to decentralised apps, enabling global, transparent and accessible financial and consumer services. Prior to Argent, Itamar worked at BCG, Amazon and VISA, and founded Peak, the leading mobile brain training service with more than 50 million users and 500 thousand
subscribers, sold to Lagardere SCA in 2016.

Anthony Hilton, the chief economics and business commentator for the Evening Standard is one of the longest serving British business journalists having joined Fleet Street in 1968 as a Trainee on the Guardian, with an MA in economics. A multiple award winner for his journalism he last year collected the Journalist of the year award from the British Insurance Brokers Association and in March was given a life time achievement award by the ABI. His most recent success was the Headline Money Award for “ Outstanding Achievement.” He began his public speaking career when he worked for three years as economic commentator for Channel 4’ on The Business Programme in the late 1980s and subsequently went on to devise and co present the Stocks and Shares Show for ITV. Currently he is the finance and business commentator for the Evening Standard and a weekly columnist for The Independent. Anthony will be delivering the keynote ‘An update on Brexit negotiations 18 months on from triggering Article 50: What has been the impact on the economy, EU-UK trade relations and the investment landscape?’ on the 11th September.

Jean-Francois Le Ruyet is a Partner of the Quilvest Private Equity team, co-managing US/Europe co-investments and funds programs with a focus on buy-out in Europe. Jean-Francois has over 12 years of experience in PE. Prior to joining Quilvest, Jean-Francois gained strategic consulting experience first with Bain & Company, then with McKinsey, advising PE firms among other assignments. Jean-Francois is a graduate of HEC in Paris and holds an MBA from Columbia Business School.

Ankur is Managing Partner at Emergent Ventures (www.emergent.vc), a San Francisco based early stage venture capital firm investing in US and India. Earlier, Ankur has been a venture investor across US, India and Israel at Nexus Venture Partners and Blumberg Capital. Prior to that, Ankur led product teams at Andiamo Systems and later Cisco which acquired Andiamo in 2004. Prior to that, Ankur held engineering roles at Softaware Networks and later at Digital Island, which acquired Softaware Networks in 2000. Ankur’s selected investments include Minjar (acquired by Nutanix), Arkin (acquired by VMware) and Cyvera (acquired by Palo Alto Networks).

Cornerstone Fund Placement ("Cornerstone") is a London based boutique placement agent launched in 2017 to support private equity fund managers in their fundraising. On founding Cornerstone, Louis Trincano commented "Open door policy and open mind; at Cornerstone we help creative and talented fund managers present themselves to investors. Our style is straightforward and to the point, we do not talk to investors, we listen to what they want".

Amanda is responsible for Investor Services at Triton. Prior to joining Triton, Amanda worked in private equity for a number of years, first as a Principal at Langholm Capital and later as a Director at Capital Dynamics. More recently, she was a Managing Partner at Hannes Snellman Copenhagen. She holds an MBA from London Business School and a master’s degree in Law from Copenhagen University of Law.

Christiian joined Equistone in 2007 from MML Capital and prior to that began his private equity career with Campbell Lutyens. He is responsible for fundraising and leading the IR programme for current and potential investors. He also coordinates responsible investment and ESG initiatives at Equistone. Having been involved in the closing of Equistone’s third fund in 2007, he has subsequently led the fundraising for Equistone’s last two vehicles: Fund IV (closed at €1.5bn in 2013) and Fund V (closed at €2bn in 2015).  Christiian graduated from Royal Holloway, University of London, with a degree in French and History. He currently serves as a member of the Investor Relations Advisory Group of the BVCA.

 

 

Michael represents the industry at the highest levels of business and government and is a regular commentator in the international media. He joined Invest Europe in 2013 from Citigroup, where he was Managing Director for European Government Affairs. Michael was previously at the UK Permanent Representation to the EU and has 15 years of experience in the UK civil service.

Thies is a founding partner at Berlin-based venture capital firm Project A. In this role, Thies oversees Project A's investor relations and is a trusted advisor to Project A portfolio companies. This includes for example leading Project A's work with KRY, Contorion, Spryker and uberall. Before founding Project A, Thies served as CEO for a German online comparison startup. Previous to that, he was a Principal at The Boston Consulting Group (Berlin, New York) and headed the global operations strategy team at the sporting goods company adidas.

Jack Leeney is a Founding Partner of 7GlobalCapital based in San Francisco, CA. Jack led the firms investments in Cheddar and Capsule and focuses on US growth stage technology opportunities. Prior to 7GC Jack was the Head of US Investing for Telefonica Ventures and an investor at Hercules Capital where he served on the Board of 7 investments, oversaw 3 IPOs and 6 M&A exits in his portfolio. Jack began his career at Morgan Stanley as a tech investment banker and worked on the IPOs of Tesla, LinkedIn and Pandora. Jack has served as an advisor to the Governments of UK, Spain and Portugal on VC strategy and earned his degree at Syracuse University.

Dharmash is partner at Lakestar. At Lakestar, Dharmash’s interests are in AI/machine learning, autonomy, VR/AR, blockchain and marketplaces. He is responsible for team operations and to foster our VC, corporate and political network in the UK. Dharmash has been an entrepreneur, group MD of a listed company and gathered extensive on private and public boards. Having started his career as a brand manager at P&G, he moved on to Boston Consulting Group and later became Group Managing Director of EMAP, a UK media company, where he co-led its FTSE delisting and sale of its consumer division for USD1.48 billion. While at Balderton Capital he focused on board activities on over ten boards including Lovefilm (Amazon), KupiVip (Russion E-Commerce), Mog (Apple Music) and Tictal (Saas E-commerce). Dharmash was the founder and CEO of blow (on demand market place) and raised greater USD10.0 million in financing. He has also served on the boards of Dixons, Hargreaves Lansdown and most recently on the BBC Executive Board and BBC Worldwide board. Dharmash graduated with both a BA and MEng, in Engineering, Economics and Management from the University of Oxford.

Juan Carlos is a Co-founder of Eneas Alternative Investments and is involved in investment relations along with the strategic, management and investment processes. Juan Carlos is also the founder of Eneas Advisory, a specialized financial advisory boutique founded in 2003. He has more than 15 years of experience in corporate finance and advising companies of various industrial sectors. He also has experience in debt restructuring and cost optimization. Juan Carlos has also managed several investments in real estate distress assets.Previously he worked in PwC where he started as an auditor and later became director of the M&A department.Juan Carlos holds a Master degree in European Financials at IEAF and a degree in Economics at EBSI. He speaks Spanish and English.

Vince O’Brien is Chairman of Quest Fund Placement and Chairman of the Investment Committee of Nesta Impact Investing. He is a Non-Executive Director of Impax Asset Management Group plc, a leading investor in the resource efficiency sector, and is also an advisor to Montana Capital Partners, the European secondaries fund and Core Capital, the UK based private equity investor which was recently acquired by ESO Capital. Vince has worked in the private equity industry for nearly 30 years. A former Chairman of the British Venture Capital Association, he served for more than 20 years as a partner with Montagu Private Equity, a mid-market private equity manager with over €5 billion of assets under management. He started his private equity career at Coopers and Lybrand where he assisted management teams in fundraising and venture capital transactions.

Anne Glover is Chief Executive and Co-founder of Amadeus Capital Partners, the international technology investor, which has raised over $1bn for investment in high growth technology companies since 1997.   Building on her scientific training and operating experience, Anne has been an active venture capitalist for almost thirty years.  Early in her career Anne lived in the US, working in manufacturing with Cummins Engine Company and in strategy consulting with Bain & Co, before returning to the UK to join Apax Partners in 1989 to invest in early stage companies. She became Chief Operating Officer of one of her investee companies, Virtuality Group, after it listed on the London Stock Exchange in 1993, and then returned to investing as a business angel before founding Amadeus in 1997. A former Chairman of the British Private Equity and Venture Capital Association (2004/2005) and Invest Europe (formerly EVCA) (2014/2015), Anne is a member of the UK Government’s Council for Science and Technology and of the London Business School’s Private Equity Institute Advisory Board. She currently serves on the board of Glysure. In 2018, Anne was appointed as a Non-Executive Director of the Court of the Bank of England and to the Board of British Patient Capital, part of the British Business Bank. Anne holds an MA in Metallurgy & Materials Science from Clare College, Cambridge, and a Masters in Public and Private Management from Yale School of Management. She was awarded a CBE for services to business and is an honorary fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering.

Jose Pfeifer joined Investcorp in 2006 where he originates, executes and manages mid-market PE deals across Europe. He has led a number of investments and realizations in Germany, the UK, Southern Europe and Scandinavia. Prior to Investcorp, Jose worked in Citigroup’s Investment Banking team in London. Jose graduated from EBS University for Business and Law in Germany.

Philip has a broad experience in the management of both open ended and closed ended funds.  Our clients benefit from his industry expertise gained over 30 years specialising in financial services and particularly covering venture capital, private equity and infrastructure investment structures. He acts as director to numerous investment funds and related general partners. He is an executive director for Ocorian’s key regulated operating companies and also leads our European Depositary and Operator services. Prior to joining Ocorian in 2010, Philip headed the Jersey fund management company of a private Swiss bank for more than ten years.  He is a chartered accountant and has been awarded an MBA from Edinburgh Business School."

Guillaume Lautour, based in London, is a seasoned venture capitalist specializing in creative media and product innovation. He is Managing Partner and co-founder of Level-Up, an industrial investment fund created in 2016 and dedicated to European mobile game studios, from seed to late-stage. Previously for 15 years as a Partner of Idinvest, a PE firm based in Paris with $2 billion allocated to venture capital, Guillaume has led the funding of more than 35 European and US startups in Creative Media (Gaming, Music, TV, Video), Telecoms and AdTech. His investments helped creating more than $4 billion in corporate value (and an IRR >35% on 15 years) and include Deezer, Dailymotion and Criteo. Guillaume also funded 7 game studios in Europe (with an IRR >45%.) including Pretty Simple and SocialPoint. Level-Up has made 4 investments to date in mobile studios.

At Target Global Mike is focused on investments in the Fintech and E-commerce spaces, as well as overall management of the firm. He also manages the relationships with co-investors who join deals alongside Target Global. Before joining Target Global, Mike worked at one of the largest Russian asset manageres, Alfa Capital, where he was responsible for managing $200+ million in assets for Alfa Capital’s 15 largest private clients. Mike holds a bachelor’s degree from the London School of Economics and twice won Russian state competitions in economics and entrepreneurship.

Michelle Kathryn Essomé is Chief Executive Officer of the African Private Equity and Venture Capital Association (AVCA) and brings 20 years of investment banking experience in marketing and origination roles in equities, fixed income, and investment management at Merrill Lynch, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, Lehman Brothers and Nomura. Ms. Essomé has an MBA in Finance from Columbia Business School, where she was a Robert F. Toigo Foundation Fellow, and a BBA in Finance from Howard University where she was the recipient of scholarships including one from the Wall Street Journal. Ms. Essomé has completed an executive course in Private Equity and Venture Capital at Harvard Business School and is the inaugural recipient of the Columbia Business School Young Alumni of the Year Award (2014). In her role, she frequently represents the industry in the media and was recently profiled on Bloomberg TV’s “African Women to Watch.” She has worked in the United States, United Kingdom and France, lived in Niger and is fluent in French.

Named as one of DataIQ’s 50 Most Influential People in Data, Matthew is an industry expert on how companies can use their data to contribute to successful business decisions, having worked with global brands, including O2, Virgin, Hiscox, Rolls Royce, Hitachi, Paypal, Skoda and Sony over the years. Matthew has a wealth of knowledge within the data and consultancy space having founded and lead a number of data strategy, research and insight businesses, taking three to successful commercial exit. After establishing his own companies over the years and successfully negotiating their acquisition’s, Matthew joined the Ogilvy and Mather UK Group and EMEA Boards in 2013 and took responsibility for ensuring that data, and the new data driven economy, were at the heart of customer engagement for the group. As the Head of Data for EMEA Matthew’s role was to develop market leading data products and to create the kind of professional services that really build partnerships. Before joining Parity, Matthew led a successful £1 million crowd-funding initiative as Interim Chief Executive at nHouse Commerical Ltd in 2017. Matthew joined Parity as Managing Director in May 2018 to drive the development of their market leading consulting practice. His focus is in the development of products and services to provide clients with genuine insight, enabling businesses to take bold, confident, commercial decisions based on reliable data. 

Daniele Genovesi joined  Truffle Capital as Investment Manager on the IT/Digital Investment Team at the beginning of 2018. Prior to that he worked at 360° Capital Partners focusing on Robolution Fund (80M fund) where he's main investment areas were Robotics, AI, Transportation (self-driving, sensors etc) and IoT.  Before entering the VC world Daniele worked as IT Strategy & Delivery Consultant (Gartner, Accenture) for global digital-telco companies. During his time as a consultant he had the opportunity to define IoT group strategy, synthetize post-acquisition structure and P&L, lead Fixed Line IT transformation project, deliver disaster recovery solutions and performance improvements for end to end IT systems. Daniele holds a Bachelor degree in Computer Engineering (with Honours), a Master of Science degree in Robotics and Vehicle Control (with Honours), a Master of Management from Pisa University and an MBA from INSEAD. Fascinated by technology and adventures he loves riding his motorbike, playing the guitar, sports in all forms and trying new cuisines (cooking, but to be honest mainly eating). 

Prior to StepStone, Mr. Evans was a Director at UBS Wealth Management where he provided investment advice focused on private market opportunities.  Before that he worked for PwC’s transactions services division advising private equity groups on proposed investments. Mr. Evans received his BSc from Durham University and is a Chartered Accountant.

Joakim Dal is a Partner in GP Bullhound Asset Management, working with investments in technology companies. Mr Dal was previously at EQT and Morgan Stanley and has a masters degree from Stockholm School of Economics.