2023 Advisory board

Dennis Hall is a Partner with Baird Capital. Based in London, he leads Baird Capital's Global Portfolio Operations team, focusing on assisting our investment and management teams drive the value of our investee companies.

Dennis joined Baird Capital in 2006 and has over 30 years of relevant operational and financial experience. With a Joint Honours degree in accounting and law plus an MBA from Warwick Business School, Dennis trained with Singer & Friedlander before moving into operational and then portfolio management roles where he has served on the boards of a large variety of businesses during a private equity career that spans in excess of 25 years.

Dennis sits on the Global Valuation Committee, chairs the new transaction assessment Partner Meetings and currently represents Baird Capital on the board of directors of bfinance, the SR Group and Collage.

ohn is a Director in the NorthEdge portfolio team, overseeing 5 investments.

He is a chartered accountant having worked for KPMG earlier in his career, ahead of joining the Co-operative Group M&A team.
John then spent 8 years in industry, firstly as CFO of £80m turnover Individual Restaurants and latterly as CEO of NorthEdge portfolio company East Coast Concepts.

Initially joining East Coast Concep s as CFO following the NorthEdge investment, he then won CFO of the year in his category across both the 2018 North West Finance and the 2019 FD Excellence awards, before being promoted to CEO in 2020.

Avent is Chief Executive Officer at Earth Capital Ltd, as well as a Board Director and member of the Investment Committee.
Avent is named as one of the leading water tech investors in the UK and has been recognised by Business Insider and Tribe Capital as one of the top 10 female early stage investors in Europe. With over 25 years’ experience in venture capital and private equity investing, portfolio management and corporate finance advisory, with a particular focus on high-growth technology businesses, she has a strong track record of successful investments.

As Head of Portfolio Talent, Investindustrial I work with our investment teams and portfolio company management to ensure we have strong human capital planning processes with the optimal organisational design defined, high performing teams with development plans and access to industry leaders to share best practise

Investment Director at Mayfair Equity Partners with 10 years of European Private Equity Mid-Market investing, after an earlier career as a Mgmt Consultant with Bain & Company

Antonin de Margerie joined Eurazeo as Portfolio Performance Managing Director. Prior to joining, Antonin was Managing Director at Oaktree Capital Management based in London working for 5 years within its European Private Equity and Debt funds focusing on portfolio companies management and transformation (PegasusLife, Solvtrans, Kley, Zodiac Milpro, IT Kontrakt.). His background includes several CEO / Board positions (Vallourec, Terreal, Mérieux NutriSciences) in France and in the US. He started his carrer as a consultant at BCG.
Antonin holds an MBA from Insead and a MS from Ecole Nationale Supérieure de Techniques Avancées

Johanna joined FSN Capital in 2020. Prior to FSN, she was Head of DACH for a software start-up in Munich, building and leading the sales and account management teams. Before that, she worked for more than five years at Booz & Company and Strategy& (part of PwC network) as Project Manager in Strategy consulting. Johanna holds an MBA from INSEAD Business School and an M.Sc. in Business Sciences from the Johannes Kepler University in Austria. During her M.Sc. studies, she also spent one year at the Goizueta Business School of Emory University in Atlanta.

Violette has extensive experience in driving growth through digital technology and data driven solutions. She joined LDC in 2017 from McDonald’s, where she was digital marketing director for Europe. She provides support to the LDC portfolio to unlock value creation opportunities from digital transformation.

Violette is passionate about the role businesses can play to support a more sustainable and equitable future. She has played a leading role in developing LDC’s ESG strategy and supporting its portfolio companies to further advance their own strategies and reporting.

Violette holds an MBA from Essec Business School Paris.

Ben is a Director at Synova with a 15 year+ track record of investing in and supporting companies across the UK mid-market. He is responsible for oversight of Synova's portfolio, leading strategy and value creation activities. Prior to joining Synova, Ben worked at LDC as an Investment Director and at RBS as a member of the Strategic Investment Group. Ben also spent several years advising companies whilst working at PwC, where he qualified as a Chartered Accountant. Ben sits on the boards of 3173, Orbis, Charnwood Molecular, Pacifica Group and Travelsmart.

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Matt is a Director at Foresight based in our Manchester office. Prior to Foresight, Matt worked at Mazars.
Matt holds an undergraduate degree in Economics and Social Policy as well as a Diploma in Corporate Finance from the University of Sheffield.