Fundraising Masterclass | EM PE Week in London 2015
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Speakers include
Runa Alam, CEO and Partner, Development Partners International
Runa Alam is a co-founding partner and CEO of DPI, a Pan-African private equity firm with over US$1.1 billion of assets under management. She has more than 30 years of private equity, emerging market management, and investment banking experience. She serves on the board of several African companies and organizations. Mrs. Alam holds a B.A. in International and Developmental Economics from Princeton University and an MBA from the Harvard Business School. She is the former Chair and a current Board Member of AVCA, and an Advisory Board and Africa Council member of EMPEA.
Hany Assaad, Co-founder and Chief Portfolio & Risk Officer, Avanz Capital
Hany Assaad is a co-founder of Avanz Capital, established in 2010 to pursue private equity investing opportunities across the broad emerging markets, focusing on middle market growth capital and buyout funds. As the Chief Portfolio & Risk Officer, he leads the sourcing, screening and negotiation of investments, risk management, and the environmental, social and governance aspects of the firm’s operations.
Mr. Assaad was Chief Investment Officer in the International Finance Corporation (IFC) Private Equity and Investment Funds Department, leading the investment process for sector-specific funds targeting investments in agribusiness, clean technology, clean energy, forestry, healthcare, information and communications technology, infrastructure, mining and sustainability funds. He also headed IFC’s private equity funds business, both new investments and portfolio, in the Middle East and North Africa region, and oversaw IFC’s funds business in South Asia, Central, Eastern and Southern Europe and Central Asia.
Molly Brister, Senior Research Analyst, EMPEA
Molly Brister is a Senior Research Analyst at EMPEA, where she leads the organization’s coverage of Africa and the Middle East. Molly is a regular author of EMPEA research content, including the EMPEA Brief: First-time Funds in Emerging Markets and the EM PE Annual Fundraising and Investment Review 2014. Molly also manages EMPEA’s HelpDesk offering, interacting regularly with EMPEA Members, the media and other industry players.
Prior to joining EMPEA, Molly worked at the Center for International Private Enterprise (CIPE), where she supported a range of projects that focused on property rights, corporate governance and entrepreneurship. Molly graduated magna cum laude from Middlebury College in February 2011 with a B.A. in International Studies.
Gustavo Eiben, Managing Director, TRG
Gustavo Eiben is a Managing Director and Head of Business Development for TRG’s private markets division. Mr. Eiben brings vast experience in the private equity asset class, including direct experience in raising and investing capital in third-party private equity funds. Prior to joining TRG, Mr. Eiben was the head of North America investor relations for Aureos Capital (now Abraaj Capital). Prior to his experience with Aureos, Mr. Eiben was a senior member of the Alternative Investments Group at J.P. Morgan Private Bank, and earlier one of the pioneering members of the UBS private equity placement group. Mr. Eiben began his career with the Mergers and Acquisitions group at PricewaterhouseCoopers. He received an MBA degree from Thunderbird, the International Management School.
Anne Fossemalle, Director, Equity Funds, European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD)
Anne Fossemalle has been the Director in charge of Equity Funds at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development since 2009.
Previously, she was the Director, Bank Equity, responsible for EBRD’s direct equity investments in banks. Prior to this appointment in 2007, she was a Senior Banker in the Financial Institutions group, where she led various debt and equity transactions with banks, and was responsible for EBRD’s relationship with international banking groups. She joined EBRD in 1993, as part of the Agribusiness Team, then the Hungary Team, from Crédit National in Paris, where she was responsible for loans and equity transactions with large French food companies
Anne holds various Supervisory Board, Advisory Board and Investment Committee memberships.
Anne holds an M.A. in Economics from Stanford University (U.S.A), an M.Sc. from Ecole Nationale du Génie Rural, des Eaux et des Forêts (France), an M.Sc. from Institut National Agronomique Paris-Grignon (France).
Mark Kenderdine-Davies, General Counsel, CDC Group plc
Mark, a British national, is General Counsel of CDC Group plc (CDC) with oversight of the company’s legal and regulatory affairs. Mark manages the company’s legal team and corporate secretariat and sits on its private funds investment committee.
CDC, established by HM Government in 1948, is the world’s oldest development finance institution (DFI). Its mission is to support the building of businesses, to create jobs and make a lasting difference to people’s lives in some of the world’s poorest places. CDC invests from its own balance sheet of US$5.7bn. Receipts and profits from its investments are recycled into future investments.
CDC provides capital in all forms, including equity, debt, mezzanine and guarantees, to fund growth. It invests both directly and indirectly through private equity fund managers whose aims are aligned with its own. As a responsible investor, it seeks to add value by helping companies achieve good standards of governance, along with strong environmental, social and integrity policies.
CDC has committed approximately US$6.0bn to private equity funds and co-investments in Africa, Asia, Central America and Latin America since 2004. It currently targets fund, direct equity and debt investment opportunities in Africa and South Asia.
Mark joined CDC in 2006 from Gartmore Investment Management plc where he was Legal Counsel focusing on private equity and other alternative investments. Prior to that, he was Legal Counsel at Threadneedle Asset Management Limited. From 1994 to 2002, Mark lived in Vietnam working in Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and Myanmar as General Counsel/Senior Investment Executive at Indochina Asset Management Limited, the manager of two private equity funds, and as Executive Director of an investment company. Before the move to Vietnam, Mark was a partner at a London law firm.
Mark has an LLB (Hons) from the University of Liverpool and an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School Of Business.
Mark is admitted to practice as a solicitor of the Supreme Court of England and Wales and is a Non-Executive Director of the Emerging Markets Private Equity Association whose Legal and Regulatory Council he also chairs. Mark is also a Member of the Legal and Regulatory Committee of the African Venture Capital Association.
Geoffrey Kittredge, Partner, Debevoise & Plimpton
Geoffrey Kittredge is a partner in the London office of Debevoise & Plimpton LLP. Mr. Kittredge's focuses on private equity and investment fund formation, and represents a broad range of international private equity and other private investment funds and their sponsors. Mr. Kittredge has been in Europe since 1999, and is Chair of Debevoise’s European Private Equity Funds Group. Mr. Kittredge is a member of the EMPEA Legal & Regulatory Council.
He is ranked as a top-tier lawyer for Investment Funds by Chambers UK and Chambers Europe where he “is widely acknowledged as a pre-eminent figure in the private equity funds world.”
Jesper Persson, Head of Unit, Private Equity, European Investment Bank (EIB)
Jesper Persson is responsible for the European Investment Bank’s private equity investments in sub-Saharan Africa, Caribbean, Pacific, and MENA. He previously held the position of Structured Finance Manager at the European Investment Fund. Prior to joining the EIB Group in August 2003, Jesper worked during a number of years in investment banking and structured finance for CIBC World Markets and Fitch Ratings in London. Jesper holds a degree in economics and finance from Lund University, Sweden and the University of Exeter, UK. He is a CFA charterholder.
Brooks Preston, Head of Investment Funds Department, Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC)
Brooks Preston was appointed Head of Investment Funds of OPIC’s Investment Funds Department (IFD) in May 2014 and sits on OPIC’s Investment Committee. Previously, Brooks was Managing Partner of VGF Emerging Markets I, L.P. and a member of its Investment Committee. Prior to creating VGF EM, Brooks worked in emerging markets as a Principal at Wolfensohn & Company, an emerging market private equity fund, and as a senior manager at BP plc in the downstream oil businesses and in alternative energy. Brooks has a BA from Dartmouth and an MBA from Stanford.
Jaap Reinking, Director Financial Institutions, FMO
As of June 1st, 2015, Jaap Reinking started as Director of the Private Equity department within FMO.
Before taking this responsibility Jaap Reinking has been Director of the Financial Institutions department between January 1st, 2014 and May 2015. Prior to the Financial Institution department he headed the Agribusiness & Diverse Sectors department of FMO from January 2009 to December 2013. In his role as Director he has shown that he is able to form good functioning teams and manage change processes. He sets clear objectives and communicates well. As a Leader of teams he proved to be a good people manager and a person able to give direction to diverse teams comprising of up to 58 employees. Both departments showed growing performance during his leadership.
Before Jaap was appointed as Director of Agribusiness & Diverse Sectors, he worked at FMO in a variety of positions including, Senior Credit Analyst, (Senior) Investment Officer, Manager Business Development for Latin America and the Caribbean, Chairman of the FinPre commission and Manager for new clients in Asia. Within FMO he was member of the Asset and Liability Committee, the Investment Review Committee and Investment Committee as a voting member. He has gained broad experience in investing in emerging markets by executing deals himself, analyzing companies, financial institutions and projects in diverse sectors and maintaining relationships.
Prior to FMO, Jaap worked at Banque de Suez Nederland N.V. (credit risk management, account manager and treasury department), at Koninklijke Borsumij Wehry N.V., responsible for the implementation of the internal treasury department and as a Credit Risk Analyst at Deutsche Bank de Bary N.V, where he gained experience in analyzing companies and complex financial transactions.
Jaap has attended various financial, management development, ESG, and Corporate Governance courses/trainings. Jaap Reinking is married and has three children.
John Rife, Associate, Debevoise & Plimpton
John W. Rife III is an English-qualified associate in the London office of Debevoise & Plimpton LLP. He advises institutional and independent sponsors of buyout, debt, secondaries, infrastructure and energy funds, as well as funds of funds, in connection with a broad range of matters, including fund formation and on-going operational matters, co-investments, secondary transactions and internal reorganizations.
John Rife is ranked as an “associate to watch” for Investment Funds: Private Equity by Chambers UK, where sources quote him as being “very responsive and hard-working – he clearly understands the issues that we face as a business and an industry.”
Matt Saronson, Partner, Debevoise & Plimpton
Matthew D. Saronson is a partner in the London office of Debevoise & Plimpton LLP. He advises sponsors and investors on the U.S. and international tax aspects of private equity funds, and represents clients in connection with complex, multi-jurisdictional acquisitions, dispositions, financings and partnership transactions. Working with the firm’s fund formation lawyers in the U.S., Europe and Asia, he has advised on a broad spectrum of private funds.
Mr. Saronson joined Debevoise’s New York office in 1997 and relocated to the firm’s London office in 2003, where he became a partner in 2006. He is recommended as a leading tax lawyer by Legal 500 UK (2015).
Nicolas Schellenberg, Senior Investment Director, Cambridge Associates
Nicolas is a senior investment director at Cambridge Associates and is based in the firm’s London office. He heads the ex-US private equity and venture capital research team in Europe and is responsible for performing due diligence on private equity and venture capital opportunities in Europe as well as across some emerging markets, including Latin-America and Africa.
Before Nicolas joined Cambridge Associates, he worked at Macquarie Investment Management, in the Private Equity Fund of Funds team in London, where his responsibilities included the due diligence and quantitative analysis of primary, secondary and co-investments, as well as portfolio management. Prior to this, Nicolas was with the Merger & Acquisition Advisory Teams of Lazard & Co. and ABN AMRO in London. He also worked at the life insurance company Deutsche Herold Lebensversicherung AG in Bonn, Germany.
Gunnar Stork, Director Corporates/Funds – Africa – Risk Capital, DEG
Gunnar Stork heads the risk capital business for Corporates and Funds in Africa at DEG – Deutsche Investitions- und Entwicklungsgesellschaft, the German development finance institution. Prior to this he was the Director of DEG in Mexico, responsible for Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean from 2008 till 2012. Before joining DEG in 2001, he held various positions in the international tax structuring and consulting business. He holds a Masters Degree in Business from the University of Cologne, Germany and a Masters in International Management from CEMS – the Community of European Management Schools at the Université Catholique de Louvain, Belgium
Robert van Zwieten, President and Chief Executive Officer, EMPEA
Robert provides overall strategic leadership of EMPEA and oversees the continuous expansion of value to existing and prospective members and the organization’s work to develop the asset class globally.
Prior to EMPEA, Robert was the Asian Development Bank’s Director of Private Sector Capital Markets, based in Manila, Philippines, responsible for origination and structuring of US$2.5 billion in transactions and investments across 40 Asian emerging and frontier markets. Robert oversaw ADB's US$1 billion in private equity investments deployed in 47 funds. He pioneered three new private equity funds and two new non-bank financial institutions, raising close to US$1 billion in third-party capital commitments.
Previously, Robert served as Managing Director and COO for an Asia-focused hedge fund venture, and prior to that as Senior Executive Vice President and CFO for the Singapore Exchange. His experience further includes roles as Senior Vice President, CAO and other leadership positions with Lehman Brothers in New York; Managing Director and Global Treasurer with GE Energy in Atlanta; and Managing Director and Treasurer for GE Capital Asia-Pacific in Hong Kong during the Asian Financial Crisis. Earlier in his career he worked with ABN AMRO Bank in Amsterdam, Chicago and Singapore, and with Royal VOPAK in Rotterdam.
Robert currently serves on the Board of Trustees of International House of New York, and is a Member of the Board’s Investment Committee. He is also the Chairman of the Board of Music For Life International, Inc. Mr. van Zwieten earned an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, holds JD and MA degrees from Leiden University in the Netherlands, and an LL.M. degree from Columbia University School of Law in New York. He is a citizen of both the Netherlands and the United States.