2023 Speakers

Andreas Bösenberg has been active in the international private equity industry for more than 22 years. He started his career at 3i. Since 2000 he was responsible for leading and setting up various private equity investment teams in the small-mid market segment and was jointly responsible for over Euro 2bn of invested capital in Europe. Also, he successfully assisted many portfolio companies during their transformation and growth phase and exited several of them in international IPOs and trade sales. In May 2018 Andreas was appointed as managing director of NORD Holding an asset manager with over 2.5bn Euro of AUM where he focuses on transformational investments in the German speaking region with a sector specific sourcing approach.

Bernard is a co-founder and Managing Partner at Connection Capital, the London-based private equity and alternative investment firm. He heads up the SME Investment Team and has 30 years’ experience investing and supporting small to medium sized private companies in the UK, working alongside ambitious, entrepreneurial management teams across all sectors.

Connection Capital is a generalist investor, typically investing between £3m - £10m in UK companies within the lower middle market. It has invested £456m since 2010 and returned £259m to investors. The SME portfolio currently includes a world-leading technology company focused on high-end processing products for LED video walls, serving the Virtual Production and Live Events markets; pharmacy chain Mr Pickfords; and the UK’s first Starbuck’s franchisee, 23.5 Degrees.

Ralf Flore has been Managing Partner and co-founded Ufenau Capital Partners in 2010. He has over 20 years of experience in the private equity industry and 5 years of industrial experience.

Prior to joining Ufenau Capital Partners, Ralf Flore was CEO of a publicly listed private equity company based in Zurich and Frankfurt. Prior tenures include Go Equity in Vienna, Swiss Life Equity Partners and Capvis Equity Partners.

Ralf Flore started his career as a commercial trainee in a medium-sized industrial company and has a master degree in Business Administration with a focus on strategic management and controlling.

James leads Origination at NorthEdge having spent seven years in Corporate Finance at Clearwater International where he was a Director responsible for generating mid-market opportunities and managing the Deal Origination team.

James has experience across a number of sectors meeting with management teams to understand their plans and joined NorthEdge to identify new investment opportunities via growth and development capital, management buy-outs, equity release and buy-and-build opportunities.

Ulrich Hardt is a partner at Headway Capital Partners, a London based private equity secondaries firm with advised funds of over €1 billion. Headway provides bespoke liquidity and capital solutions to private equity GPs and managers, investing globally in a full range of secondary and co-investment transactions, with a focus on small to mid-size secondary direct, GP-led and independent sponsor transactions in Europe and North America.

Prior to joining Headway Capital in 2009, Ulrich was part of the European Growth Capital team of 3i in Frankfurt and London. Before 3i, Ulrich worked at Calyon Credit Agricole CIB in the Leveraged Finance department in Frankfurt. Ulrich received a Master degree in Business Administration from Mannheim University, Germany and a MBA from Colorado State University, USA.

As Chief Commercial Officer at Titanbay and a member of the founding team, Adam is responsible for driving business growth and market share, overseeing the sales, investor relations, commercial and marketing teams. He brings a wealth of experience and a demonstrated history of revenue and earnings growth.

Prior to joining Titanbay in June 2020, Adam spent 2 years with World Golf Group, the owner of Premier Golf League, for which he raised more than $1bn.

Adam spent five years at Capital Group as a Managing Director looking after Global Financial Institutions (GFIs) and Intermediaries. Before this he was Investment Director, GFIs at Standard Life Investments, where he designed and implemented a servicing framework to build and better serve its GFI client base, whilst maintaining responsibility for securing good relationships with UK Financial Institutions. Prior positions were held at Banque Syz & Co and ABN Amro Asset Management where he worked across GFIs, Wealth Managers, Insurance companies and Investment Consultants.

He holds a B.Sc. in Finance from University of Southampton.

Claire Hedley is ESG Director at 17Capital, where she leads ESG strategy and implementation across investments and the management company. Prior to joining 17Capital, Claire worked at Goldman Sachs Asset Management for 15 years. She joined as an analyst in 2007 working in both London and New York in the Alternative Investments & Manager Selection (AIMS) Group. Prior to leaving GS, Claire led the ESG & Impact Client Strategy Group in London, where she was responsible for driving GS Asset Management’s client facing and commercial ESG efforts in EMEA. Claire has a BA (Hons) in English from the University of Leeds (UK).

Jenny Collins joined Mayfair Equity Partners to oversee their people function and is responsible for their innovative integrated staffing model and the development of culture. Her work includes the delivery of team growth strategies and the creation of streamlined and effective processes to achieve scale.

Previously, Jenny spent 14 years at Google where she oversaw the expansion of AI Research, managing recruitment across the EMEA region and opening new sites from Amsterdam to Accra. Jenny has worked for a range of large and small organisations and run her own consultancy, developing people plans and recruiting executive roles for start-ups, scale-ups and global businesses.

Wol has been instrumental in developing the Livingbridge strategy, leading the spin out from its parent F&C in 2005, building the team and a strong internal culture. He joined a predecessor of Livingbridge in 1993 and has led the business since 1998. His role encompasses overall responsibility for the leadership and strategic development of Livingbridge, senior-level involvement in winning deals and active involvement in selective key investments. Wol initially trained as an engineer, having studied civil and structural engineering at Kings College, London. After obtaining an MBA from Exeter University, he spent three years with Barclays before joining Livingbridge. Wol takes an active role in private equity industry initiatives and issues. He was previously a Chairman of the British Private Equity and Venture Capital Association in 2007/2008, a Council Member from 2002 - 2009 and Chairman of the Responsible Investment Advisory Board from 2009 - 2010. Wol is Chairman of the Guys and St Thomas’ Charity, which has assets in excess of £800 million, making it one of the largest medical charities in the UK. The charity awards grants to facilitate improvements to healthcare services in the London Boroughs of Lambeth and Southwark. In 2018 he was also appointed as a Non-Executive Director to the NHS Improvement Board and more recently as Trustee of Somerset House Trust. Wol received an honorary doctorate from the University of Exeter in 2014.

Neil has over 35 years’ of private equity experience. He led Silverfleet Capital, a pan-European PE fund for 15 years from its buyout from Prudential plc until his retirement as managing partner. He raised and successfully invested 3 buyout funds, the most recent, being the European Development Fund focussed on lower mid-market deals. Silverfleet invested in 22 buyouts in DACH and Benelux. Neil served on the board of two German and one Dutch company. He studied German at school and at work to develop proficiency before gaining a B1 CEFR certification.

After reading Natural Sciences and Computer Science at St Catharine’s College, Cambridge and receiving an MA, he joined Bain & Co.

Neil is a member of the board of UKBAA, Past Chair of the BVCA and an active angel investor

Head of the European Private Equity team within abrdn. With €8bn AuM focused on Europe, main activities are making primary commitments, secondary fund investments and co-investments for clients and pooled funds. 30 years in European PE industry - LP, GP, corporate financier and service provider. I am an Advisory Board member of numerous funds and a member of the Invest Europe Limited Partners Council.

Roxana Mirica is a Partner and head of Capital Markets in Europe. She is responsible for leading acquisition financing and ongoing debt and equity capital markets transactions for Apax’s portfolio companies. Additionally, Roxana manages day-to-day relationships with banks and institutional debt and equity investors.

Most recently, Roxana has worked on financing of Inmarsat, ADCO, Vyaire Medical, Candela, Baltics Classifieds Group, Healthium, Neuraxpharm, Safetykleen, Unilabs and ThoughtWorks.

Roxana joined Apax Partners in 2017. Prior to joining Apax Partners, Roxana spent 9 years at Barclays, most recently as Director in Leveraged Finance.

Roxana holds a BA in Economics and Chemistry cum laude from Dartmouth College.

Scott Moeller is the Director & Founder of the M&A Research Centre at Bayes Business School where he also Professor in the Practice of Finance. Scott is widely published as an author or co-author, including Why Deals Fail & How to Rescue Them: M&A Lessons for Deal Success (in The Economist business book series, published in September 2016). Prior to his teaching and research, Scott was at Deutsche Bank in London for 6 years in several senior banking positions. He worked first at Booz Allen & Hamilton management consultants for over 5 years and then at Morgan Stanley for over 12 years in New York, Japan, and then as co-manager of Morgan Stanley in Germany. Scott is a graduate of the Yale Graduate Schoo

Ipek Mutlu leads Esas’ international private equity investments and is based in London. She is a member of the international private equity investment committee and a board member of Bruin Sports.

Prior to joining Esas in 2017, Ipek worked for Virgin Management, Richard Branson’s family office, in their Geneva and London offices. Previously, she was part of Blackstone’s Private Equity team in London. Before that, she worked for FTV Capital, a growth equity fund in New York. İpek started her career as a business analyst in the Strategy and Corporate Finance Practice at Mckinsey’s New York office.

İpek Mutlu earned her M.B.A. degree from Harvard Business School and B.A. degree, cum laude, in Economics and Latin American Studies from Harvard University.

At EIF since January 2009, Marco is heading the Lower Mid-Market team investing in equity,

hybrid debt / equity and private debt funds across Europe, with a particular focus on the

Northern, Eastern and Southern regions. He coordinates the Lower Mid-Market investment

activity for the AMUF European Private Equity compartment and for several fund-of-funds

initiatives, each one with specific geographical scope, (i.e. Turkey, Poland, Baltics, Central

Europe, Italy, Portugal). He represents EIF on the Advisory Boards of over 20 funds.

Prior to EIF, he worked in direct investments, in an Early Stage VC fund, and in management

consulting.

Marco holds a M.S. degree in Industrial Engineering and Management.

Florian manages a team of analysts covering political, operational and security risks in Europe, the countries of the former Soviet Union and Turkey. He is based in Control Risks’ office in Frankfurt, Germany. Florian has extensive experience in delivering bespoke analysis on political, regulatory, security and integrity issues to clients from a broad range of sectors. He also contributes to Control Risks’ CORE online subscription service, focusing on political and security risks in Germany, France, and the UK as well as cross-cutting regional issues, such as activism and the future of the EU.

Imogen is a Partner and Global Head of Pantheon’s Investment Structuring and Strategy Team, part of the Investment Team, where she has responsibility for investment transaction execution, portfolio strategy, investment research and treasury & fund management. Imogen joined Pantheon in 2005 and prior to Pantheon she did direct investing for a small captive private equity team at a bank. She holds a MA in natural sciences from Cambridge University.

Henry is joint Managing Partner and co-founder of FPE Capital. He is passionate about building businesses and has spent all his career with growth companies both as an investor and as an operator. Prior to FPE Capital he was a Director of Quester, one of the largest growth capital investors in the UK. This followed eight years at AFA Systems, a financial services software company which he co-founded and joined full-time immediately prior to its IPO in 1996. From its foundation, Henry was part of a small team that drove the development of the group, both organically and by acquisition, resulting in an 8-fold increase in revenues. He returned to private equity, following the sale of AFA in 2004 to a trade buyer.

Nicolas is a Managing Director at Cambridge Associates and has over 20 years of experience in the investment and financial services industry. He is based in the firm’s London office and is a senior member of global Secondaries team. He is overseeing due diligence on secondaries opportunities and secondary funds. Previously, Nicolas led C/\s EMEAManager Research team for Private Equity, Growth and Venture Funds.

Before Nicolas joined Cambridge Associates, he worked at Macquarie Investment Management, in the Private Equity Fund of Funds team in London and as an M&A advisor prior to that.

Most recently Global Co-Head of Co-investments for Deutsche Bank, and previously co-head of HarbourVest Partners’ London based co-investment team, Claudio has 25 years of financial services and investing experience, of which 15 years have been spent exclusively on co-investments. He has sourced, executed and advocated on over $600m of capital invested into 30+ discrete co-investment transactions, and executed billions of dollars worth of M&A advisory mandates. He has served as a board member of Polynt SpA, Panda Security SL, Tyntec Ltd and affiliated SPVs.

Previously, Claudio spent a decade gaining traditional direct private equity and M&A experience at Salomon Brothers, Hicks Muse Tate & Furst, Investcorp and Audley Capital (which he co-founded).

Educated in the US and UK, Claudio speaks English, Italian, German and French fluently. He holds an M.B.A from Harvard Business School and a B.A. with honors in Economics from Harvard University.

Vesna is Partner and Head of Investor Relations at MidEuropa. She is a member of the Investment Committee and also leads the firm’s ESG and diversity efforts.

Prior to joining the firm, Vesna was Head of Client Relations at Intermediate Capital Group (ICG) and prior to that, Managing Director at Hamilton Lane. Vesna started her career in investment banking, including corporate finance and equity research roles at Bear Stearns and Credit Suisse.

Vesna holds an MBA from London Business School and a Bachelor of Arts in International Politics and Economics from Middlebury College.

Based in London, Elena is a Principal of Glendower Capital, responsible for the origination, valuation, execution, and monitoring of secondary investments as well as driving ESG monitoring and engagement across the investment team.

Prior to Glendower, Elena spent two years at Deutsche Bank in its asset management division, focusing on secondary investments. From 2012 to 2015, Elena worked in HSBC’s Financial Institutions Advisory unit, focusing on the origination and execution of strategic events after joining the bank’s Global Banking and Markets business in 2010.

Ellen van den Broek is a Director in the Co-investment team at Capital Dynamics based in London, where she focuses on investment in direct mid-market deals in Europe. She joined Capital Dynamics from Aurorae, her own company, where she focused on PE investments and deal execution across sectors and geographies for a diverse group of PE funds and family offices. She has prior experience at Partners Group, where she worked in the PE secondaries team, and prior to her MBA was an investment banker in Financial Sponsors.

Ellen has an MBA with distinction from INSEAD and also holds a Masters in Economics.

I am passionate about sustainability and investing to create a more balanced, greener, cleaner and successful society.

At Palatine, I deliver sustainability leadership throughout the investment lifecycle, engaging with management teams to assess and manage sustainability risks and value creation opportunities. Applying the sustainability lens to investments stimulates innovative thinking that helps business leaders respond to the challenges we’re facing and grow a future-ready, sustainable business. Responsible investing is critical to scaling the solutions to achieve a future that works for society and planet alike.

I joined Palatine in 2018 from an environmental consultancy and have ten years experience in the Responsible Investment space. I provide support on a range of strategic sustainability projects internally and across the Buy-Out and Impact funds. I am also responsible for the implementation of the award-winning sustainability framework and for driving internal sustainability improvements.

Garry Wilson is the Founder and Managing Partner at Endless, a private equity house which focuses on Special Situations – Turnarounds, Value Buy Outs and Carve Outs. Endles works closely with Management Teams, Advisors and Stakeholders to inject capital and drive improvement in Business Performance. Since its launch in 2005, it has invested in over 100 businesses in the UK and Europe, investing funds from world leading Universities, Charitable Foundations and Pension Schemes and its own money. To date, together with its SME Fund, Enact, Endless has raised over £1.5 billion and invested much of that. The firm’s recent and best known investments include Hovis, Findel Education, BSW Timber, Karro Foods, American Golf, Crown Paint, Imtech, Amscan and The Works Stores.