Executive Director – GP Bullhound

Alexis has broad experience across the technology industry and has led successful M&A transactions in sectors including software, IT services, telecoms, internet and digital media.

Prior to joining GP Bullhound, Alexis was Director of corporate development at Experian where he was responsible for deal origination and execution for the EMEA region. He previously spent more than 10 years working in the technology sector and held international Corporate Development roles at HP Enterprise Services and EDS, where he worked on numerous acquisitions and divestments across Europe.

Alexis holds a BSc Joint Hons. in International Management and Modern Languages from the University of Bath and an MBA from Imperial College Business School.

Partner – EQT

Carolina joined EQT Partners in June 2020, based in London, where she is a part of the Growth team that partners with growth stage companies and management teams.

Prior to EQT, Carolina was a Partner at Softbank Vision Fund, where she invested in Growth stage companies globally, and prior to that, Carolina invested at Series A and B as a Partner at Atomico. Some of her recent investments include Behavox, Gympass, Hinge Health, Rekki, Ontruck, Memphis Meats and Farmdrop. 

Previously, Carolina has worked as Head of Ops to a now defunct gifting e-commerce start-up, as an investor at Chicago-based private equity firm Madison Dearborn Partners and within Consumer/Retail Investment Banking at Merrill Lynch in New York.

Carolina has a Bachelor of Science degree in Foreign Service from Georgetown University and an MBA from Columbia Business School. She is originally from Brazil.

Partner - Orrick

Chris Grew, a partner in Orrick’s London office, is a member of the Technology Companies Group, which advises high growth technology companies and venture capital firms. Chris joined Orrick in 2008.

Chris advises technology companies in venture capital transactions, public offerings and cross-border mergers and acquisitions. He regularly advises high technology (particularly Internet and computer software and hardware) companies with respect to their international business operations and transactions, as well as investment banks, venture capital firms and other financial intermediaries that serve technology companies

Partner – Endeit Capital

Edwin is Partner at Endeit Capital, a venture capitalist with offices in Amsterdam and Hamburg. Late investments include BUX (Amsterdam), Chronext (Zurich, Blis (UK) and TourRadar (Vienna).

Prior to joining Endeit, Edwin was at Cyrte Investments, a family office of John de Mol, co-founder of Endemol. Edwin’s background is in New Media, Private Equity and M&A.

He studied aviation economics and holds a Masters Degree in Financial Economics and Business Administration but showed real perspiration by running the Athens marathon, 2500 years after Greek soldier Pheidippides was sent for a message. Edwin is director of the LOEY foundation, a Dutch initiative to stimulate Entrepreneurship.

Co-Founder of Astanor Ventures

George Coelho is Co-Founder of Astanor Ventures, an investment manager specialized in FoodTech venture finance. Previously he was Chairman of Octo Telematics, Ltd. Coelho also co-founded the European arm of Benchmark Capital, now known as Balderton Capital, a leading venture capital firm. Before Benchmark, he was a founder of Intel Capital, the strategic venture capital arm of Intel Corporation.

George has wide investment experience ranging from early-stage start-ups to public companies and has been involved in more than 100 investments worldwide. Sample transactions where he has been an early investor include: Broadcom and Citrix (US), PCCW (China), Trend Micro (Japan) and Betfair, LoveFilm and ZOPA (UK). Coelho has successfully brought companies to flotation on stock exchanges throughout the world, which today represent over $100 Billion in market capitalization.

George holds a B.S. from The American University and an MBA from The George Washington University. He has been a Trustee of The George Washington University (2008-2016) and was on the Council of the School of Business and The Corcoran School of the Arts & Design. Currently he is on the Board of Human Rights Watch and The American Air Museum in Britain. He is also a lifetime Fellow of the RSA. In 2011 he was awarded the Polish State medal, Pro Memoria.

Managing Partner - Ventech

Jean Bourcereau joined Ventech in 2000. As a General Partner, he has spent two decades helping management teams scale B2B businesses from pre-revenue to market-defining.

An engineer with a global background in Telecommunications (AT&T Bell Labs, Telecom Argentina), Semiconductors, and IP Networks (Altran Group), Jean has facilitated successful exits for Altitude Télécoms (ILD), Arteris (QCOM), Ateme (ATEME), Ekinops (EKI), Musiwave (MSFT), Muzicall (RNWK), Wengo (VIV) and Withings (NOK).

Jean is based in Paris and holds an engineering degree with a major in Physics from Ecole Polytechnique and Télécom Paris.

General Partner – TCV

John is a General Partner in London and a founding member of TCV’s European investment efforts. He focuses on investments in software, internet, and FinTech companies.

John’s current investments include Believe, FlixMobility, NewVoiceMedia, Perfecto, RELEX Solutions, Revolut, Sportradar, SuperVista AG, TourRadar, The Pracuj Group, and WorldRemit. John left his native Ireland more than 20 years ago and has lived and worked in the U.S., Asia and now Europe.

Prior to joining the investment world, John competed on the men’s ATP Tennis Tour and was a member of the Irish Davis Cup team from 1996 to 2004. He is a sports fanatic and has competed in tennis, rugby, football, squash, and Gaelic football. These days, John mostly plays on the playground with his young family and enjoys watching the occasional Manchester United match. He received his M.B.A. from the Harvard Business School and graduated with a B.A. in Economics (with honors) from Harvard College.

Chief Investment Officer – Beringea

Karen is Chief Investment Officer at Beringea, responsible for making new investments and working with portfolio companies through to exit. Her investments include Watchfinder, Thread, Fnatic, Monica Vinader, and MatsSoft amongst others.

Karen was previously with the Boston Consulting Group and ran the Watch division of Swiss Army. She holds an MBA from INSEAD and a BSBA from Boston University.

Managing Partner – IQ Capital

Kerry co-founded IQ Capital in 2006 and is one of the UK’s most experienced VC investors with over 20 years deep-tech venture capital experience. She joined Venture Technologies in 1998, investing in the first wave of UK deep-tech companies and has focussed on deep tech early-stage technology over her five funds which invest from seed to £30m to portfolio outperformers.

Kerry specialises in GTM, Strategic Marketing, Competitive Intelligence and heads up IQ’s cybersecurity, supervisory and reg tech, big data and neuro-tech portfolio. She sits on several boards and has conducted several exits and IPOs.

She is known as a contributor to best practice in venture capital, from ESG and a 2018 in-depth study on Investment Committee best practice and decision making across Private Equity and Venture Capital. She is the Chair of the British Private Equity and Venture Capital Association (BVCA), a Fellow in Entrepreneurship at the University of Cambridge (Judge Business School) and Board Advisor to All Party Parliamentary Group for Entrepreneurship.

Managing Partner – Brightly Ventures

Kerstin Cooley is Managing Partner of Brightly Ventures, a Stockholm-based seed investor focused on Nordic technology companies. Before launching Brightly, she co-founded and led the Nordic early stage investment firm MOOR, where she oversaw all the firm’s investments, and served as a board member at Acast, Attach, Buildsafe, FirstVet, Mitigram and Universal Avenue. Prior to her VC career, Kerstin worked on SEB investment teams in Sweden and the U.S., investing in start-up hedge funds and developing and selling alternative investment products for institutional clients. With 20 years of experience in the financial and IT industries, she started her career at Silicon Valley based Echelon, which was listed at Nasdaq in 1998. In the late 1990's, Kerstin co-founded global integrated communications agency Cognito and spent eight years in leading positions at financial software company, Trema, in diverse positions ranging from M&A transactions to heading the company’s US operations. Kerstin holds a Masters from Umeå School of Business and Economics.

Co-Founder and Managing Partner – GP Bullhound

Manish Madhvani is Co-Founder and Managing Partner of GP Bullhound. Manish has executed M&A and capital raising transactions since 1997, involving some of the best known global internet, software and media companies, including: Spotify, King.com, Believe Digital, WPP, Wipro, Fjord, Hearst Corporation, Accenture, Newscorp and Experian.

Manish who was selected as one of the top 40 dealmakers globally by M&A Advisor, started his career at Barclays Capital’s Private Equity team. He has advised the Treasury on Entrepreneurship and graduated from Southampton University with an LLB in Law / MA in Marketing.

Manish is a regular speaker on Bloomberg and CNBC and is currently an Ambassador for London Technology Week. He was recognised as one of the leading Entrepreneurs in the UK by the Sunday Times / Maserati 100

General Partner – Partech

Omri Benayoun is General Partner at Partech, responsible for the Growth fund. He joined in May 2014.

He currently sits on the boards of Brandwatch, EcoVadis, NA-KD, Evaneos, Rohlik and UrbanSportsClub.

Before joining Partech, Omri had senior executive positions at worldwide retail leader Casino Group: he joined the executive committee in 2010 as EVP Corporate Planning and Strategy and in 2012, he was promoted to Deputy CEO at Cdiscount.com, the #3 eCommerce player in Europe and #1 in France. Omri also worked for Dassault Systemes, where he led Corporate development department for the worldwide leader in Product Lifecycle Management software from 2007 to 2010. He started his career, from 2002 to 2007, as a high-level civil servant at the Ministry of Economy, where he implemented government programs for start-ups and SMEs.

Omri holds a Master’s Degree in Sciences from the Ecole Polytechnique summa cum laude and is an alumnus of the post graduate Corps des Mines program.

General Partner – HV Capital

Rainer has been a member of the HV Capital team since 2008. He was responsible for the firm‘s investments in Zalando (IPO 2014), Quandoo (sold to Recruit in 2015), Stylight (sold to Pro7 in 2016), HelloFresh (IPO 2017), Home24 (IPO 2018) and brands4friends (sold to eBay in 2010) and led investments in Scalable Capital, finn.auto, Dance, Outfittery, Alasco and many others.

Before coming to HV, Rainer played an entrepreneurial role as Head of Business Development at 123people.com. The business was sold successfully to Pages Jaunes in 2010. Prior to that, Rainer worked for five years in the venture capital field at 3i and Siemens Acceleration. Rainer started his career in a tech role at Siemens in 2000.

Rainer studied Electrical Engineering at the Technical University of Munich and received his MBA at INSEAD, graduating both with honors. He is a family guy, loves the outdoors and endurance sports, participated in the Ironman World Championship in Hawaii and many other events.

Partner – Connect Ventures

Rory is a Partner at Connect Ventures, a thesis-led venture capital firm based in London and investing across Europe. Connect leads seed investments in purpose-led founders, obsessed with solving hard problems at scale, by creating products and companies that people love. Rory is passionate about technology, entrepreneurship and leadership development, and has spent the majority of his career working in start-ups and venture capital. Prior to Connect he was a partner at MMC Ventures and a co-founding partner at BGF Ventures. He’s invested at seed, series A and series B stage, in both B2B and consumer software companies. He now spends most of his learning and investing in fintech

Managing Director – CVC

Sebastian joined CVC in 2012 and is a member of the CVC Telecommunications, Media & Technology team and CVC Growth Partners.

Prior to joining CVC, he worked for Francisco Partners and UBS Investment Bank.

Sebastian studied at Boston College and the University of Glasgow, where he graduated with a first class MA in Business and Management. Prior to University, Sebastian served in the German military.

Managing Director – Eurazeo Growth

Zoé is a Managing Director at Eurazeo Growth; she is based in Berlin and heads the firm’s growth equity investments with a focus on the DACH region. Before joining Eurazeo Growth, Zoé invested globally in technology-driven companies at pre-IPO stage. Prior to that, Zoé was a Senior Investment Manager at Axel Springer, Europe's largest digital publishing house, where she led several growth investments in a joint venture with General Atlantic, focusing on marketplaces, as well as in adtech and traveltech, including Yad2 and @Leisure. Zoé started her career at Blackstone, first out of Paris and then based in New York City, advising on M&A, restructuring and IPOs with a focus on Energy and Consumer.

She is currently serving on the boards of Adjust and Sophia Genetics.

Zoé graduated with a MSc in International Management from ESCP Europe and a degree in Economics from Freie Universität Berlin.