Craig Butcher
Mid-Europa Partners

Mr. Butcher is a Founding Partner of Mid Europa Partners based in Budapest.  He is responsible for sourcing, executing and managing direct equity investments across the Central Europe region.  Mr. Butcher joined the Mid Europa team in April 2001.  Previously he spent six years at EBRD in London and Budapest, most recently with regional responsibilities for managing and executing equity investments.  His prior experience includes working as a consultant with Boston Consulting Group.  Mr. Butcher holds a B.Sc. with First Class Honours from Canterbury University, New Zealand, and an M.B.A. with Distinction from INSEAD, France.

Neil Crowder
Chayton Capital

Neil joined Chayton Capital from Goldman Sachs where he was a Partner Managing Director. Most recently, Neil was Co-Head of European Research and Co-Chief Operating Officer of the Global Investment Research Division. Additionally, he served on the firm’s Commitments Committee. Prior to Goldman Sachs, Neil worked for American Express and St. Paul Companies gaining both direct and indirect real estate investment and workout experience. He received a BA from Knox College, an MSIA from Carnegie Mellon University, and is a CFA (Chartered Financial Analyst) charterholder.

Simon Davies
Managing Director, Restructuring & Reorganization Group
The Blackstone Group International

Simon is a Managing Director in the Restructuring & Reorganization Group.  He is based in London. Mr. Davies’ restructuring transactions have included AES Drax, Basis Capital, Boxclever, Carron Energy, Convenience Food Systems, Cox Insurance, Eggborough, Esprit Telecom, Eurotunnel, Galvex, Golden Key, Jarvis, Klöckner Pentaplast, Lisheen Mine, Luxfer, Mauser, MyTravel, Northern Rock, Petroplus, Pressac, Treofan and Wheelabrator. Before joining Blackstone in 2007, Mr. Davies was responsible for structuring and corporate development at SVG Capital, structuring and raising funds for the private equity industry.  Prior to that, he was an Assistant Director within the European Special Situations Group at Close Brothers Corporate Finance in London.  He is co-editor of the Economist Outlook section of The Corporate Rescue Journal and a regular contributor to the journal.  Mr. Davies began his training as a lawyer at Linklaters and spent seven years in the legal profession working on a range of restructuring, acquisition finance and LBO transactions. Mr. Davies received his BA in Mathematics from Oxford University.

Vladimír Dlouhý
Former Minister
Industry and Trade for the Czech Republic

Mr Dlouhý is a very well known political and economic figure in CEE. He held numerous political offices in Czechoslovakia and the Czech Republic, including being the very first Minister of Economy and Minister of Industry and Trade. He was responsible for much of the country’s transformation during the period of transition from communism

Tim Flower
HarbourVest

Tim joined HarbourVest's London-based subsidiary in 2008 to focus on European secondary partnership investments. Tim joined HarbourVest after three years with Bridgepoint Capital in London, where he was an associate responsible for several investments, including Allied Medical, ERM, 1st Credit, and Gambro Healthcare (Diaverum).  Tim also spent 18 months on secondment to the Bridgepoint Nordic team.  Prior to that, he was an associate director of MCF Corporate Finance, where he focused on private equity transactions in Germany and the Nordic region.  His previous experience also includes positions at Nordea Securities and Ernst & Young, where he received his ACA certification. Tim graduated with a degree in Economics from the University of Nottingham in 1997 and speaks conversational Danish.  HarbourVest Partners (U.K.) Limited

Anne Fosemalle
Director of Equity Funds
EBRD

Anne 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 investments in banks.  Prior to this appointment, 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 and Investment Committee memberships. Anne holds Masters degrees from Stanford University, Ecole Nationale du Génie Rural, des Eaux et des Forêts (France) and Institut National Agronomique Paris-Grignon (France).

Sean Glodek
Darby Private Equity

Sean is based in the Warsaw office of Darby Private Equity, currently investing a €250 million mezzanine fund dedicated to CEE. Prior to Darby, Sean was a Vice President in the Global M&A group at Lehman Brothers in New York. Before Lehman, he was part of the M&A groups at Goldman Sachs and Deutsche Bank. Sean was also an investment professional at private equity firms Clayton, Dubilier & Rice and Ameriquest Capital. In the Internet days, he co-founded Surplex AG, a B2B startup based in Germany. Sean holds BA with Honors in Economics from Stanford University and MBA from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. He is fluent in English, Polish and German with a good knowledge of Russian.

Ulrich Grabenwarter
Head, Equity Fund Investments
European Investment Fund, Luxembourg

Uli Grabenwarter is Head, Equity Fund Investments at the European Investment Fund (EIF), one of the largest pan-European investors in Venture Capital and Private Equity funds. EIF has EUR 7bn under management and commitments to more than 280 funds. Prior to EIF, Uli worked for several years at the European Investment Bank in the Directorate for Financing Operations executing structured finance operations in the corporate and financial sector and private equity fund investments. He started his career at PriceWaterhouseCoopers in the Audit and later Finance Consulting Department, specialising in derivatives for investment and risk management purposes including their use in hedge funds. Uli is author of the book “Exposed to the J-Curve: Understanding and Managing Private Equity Fund Investments” (Euromoney 2005) and numerous articles on the private equity and venture capital industry. Uli holds a Masters degree in Business and Economics from the University of Graz.

Ronny Grosman
Blackwood Capital Group

As partner of Blackwood Capital Group with over 13 years of experience in the industry, Ronny co-heads our advisory and investment activities having opened the London office in mid-2002 with Thomas Kardos. Ronny joined in April 2002 from Salomon Smith Barney where during a period of 6 years he focused on Technology, Industrial and German Investment Banking in San Francisco, New York, London and Frankfurt. Previously, Ronny worked at Dresdner Kleinwort Benson in Frankfurt. A native German speaker, Ronny is also fluent in English and French and conversational in Italian and Hebrew.

Leon Hadass
Principal
Pantheon Ventures

Leon joined Pantheon Ventures in 1999 and has over ten years of private equity experience. He focuses on the evaluation, selection and monitoring of European investment opportunities, with a specific responsibility for primary funds in Germany and Central & Eastern Europe. Before joining Pantheon, he was a Performance Analyst with WestLB Asset Management in London and a Management Consultant with Ernst & Young in Russia. He received an MBA in Finance from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and a Ph.D. in Financial Economics from Essex University. Leon is also a Chartered Financial Analyst.

Franz Hoerhager
Mezzanine Management GmbH

Since 2000 Mr. Hoerhager has been the Founding Partner and Executive Director of Mezzanine Management GmbH. From 1992 until 1999 he was a Managing Director at Bank Austria Group for Commercial Banking/ International Network Management and from 1997 a Member of the Managing Board. From 1981 to 1991, he held various positions in the International Division of the Austrian Creditanstalt Group, among others, Deputy General Manager at the Creditanstalt branch in New York. Mr Hoerhager holds a Master's and a Doctorate in economics from the Vienna University of Economy and World Trade.

Anca Ionescu
GED

Anca is the Deputy Managing Director of GED Eastern Fund II. She joined GED in Romania in 1999 and in 2002 she joined the Iberian Private Equity team in Madrid for a period of 4 years. She was in charge with the set up of the Bulgarian office in 2005 and become responsible for the GED Eastern Fund operations in 2009. Her previous experience includes Investment Bank Austria – Equity Research and Nomura Capital Markets. She holds a degree in Banking and Finance, and an MBA from HEC Montreal

Oláh Laszlo
Hungarian Venture Capital and Private Equity Association (HVCA)
Mezzanine Management Hungary

Between 1999 and 2000 he was Director at Budapest Fund Management. He held the positions of Director at the Hungarian Capital Fund and Investment Director at the Hungarian American Enterprise Fund. Mr Oláh holds a degree in International Trade and Finance from the Budapest University of Economics and earned his MBA degree from Case Western Reserve University.

Daniel Lynch
3TS

Daniel is Managing Partner, CIO of 3TS Capital Partners and is based in the firm’s Prague office. As Chief Investment Officer he co-leads 3TS and is primarily responsible for investment management. As one of the investment partners he also originates, executes and manages direct investments.  He joined 3TS in September 2000 and has over 18 years’ direct investment experience in private equity and venture capital, with extensive work and transaction experience in the Fund’s target region.  Prior to joining 3TS, Daniel was Investment Director of the AIG New Europe Fund, based in Warsaw, and was in charge of their Telecoms and Technology related business.  Daniel has a B.A. in Finance from Washington State University and an MBA from the University of California at Berkeley

Robert Manz
Enterprise Investors

Robert is a Partner and Member of the Board of Enterprise Investors, a leading private equity fund management company in Central Europe. Since 1990, Enterprise Investors (EI) has raised five funds with total capital under management of more than $1.1 billion and invested over $950 million in 100 companies in the Central and Eastern European (CEE) region. Mr. Manz joined EI as one of its first investment professionals in 1990. During his nearly sixteen years involvement with the CEE region, Mr. Manz has made investments in the areas of telecommunications, retailing, internet, printing, consumer banking, packaging, chemicals, and other industries in Poland and other CEE countries. He has served on the boards of numerous investee companies and currently is a director of Nay a.s., a leading Slovak retailer of consumer electronics and appliances, and Opoczno S.A., Poland’s leading ceramic tile producer. Mr. Manz has led EI’s successful exit from a number of key portfolio companies. Mr. Manz currently heads up EI’s investment strategy in the telecommunications sector, is responsible for co-investments with industry investors and has special responsibility for EI’s business development efforts in Slovakia and Hungary. After serving three consecutive years as the founding President of the Polish Private Equity Association (PPEA), Mr. Manz is now a Vice-President of PPEA’s board of directors. Between 1999 and 2003, Mr. Manz represented Poland on the Board of Directors of the European Private Equity and Venture Capital Association (EVCA). Since June 2003, he is Chairman of EVCA’s Central and Eastern Europe Task Force. Prior to joining EI, Mr. Manz worked with Dillon, Read & Co., an investment bank based in New York, where he specialized in mergers and acquisitions for multinational corporations. Mr. Manz graduated from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, summa cum laude, with a degree in Finance and Management of Entrepreneurship.

Mirna Marovich
Croatian Venture Capital and Private Equity Association

Bio to follow soon

Luc Nijs
Founder and Group CEO
The Talitha Group

Luc is the founder and CEO of The Talitha Group a global emerging markets merchant banking group & conglomerate. He further holds the Aizkraukles Banka chair in investment banking at the Riga Graduate School of Law in Latvia where his lecturing and research focuses on corporate and financial strategies for emerging markets and in particular the relationship between investment strategies and returns and the impact of country context and institutional voids on returns. He is the Director of the center for global emerging markets private equity and entrepreneurship and further is responsible for the emerging markets portfolio management and emerging markets PE & VC course at the institute and provides extensive executive coaching, training and consulting in these matters for funds, corporate executives and financial institutions worldwide. He was previously with Arthur Andersen and Deloitte in a number of global positions and a professor at Instituto de Empresa (Madrid). He is fluent in Dutch, English, French, German and Portuguese and holds an intermediate level in Russian and Chinese.

Martin Paev
Sortis Invest

Martin has more than eleven years of investment banking, M&A, private equity and asset management experience. He started his financial career at ING Barings (Frankfurt-am-Main, Germany) and then worked for ETEBA (investment bank of National Bank of Greece) and Balkan Advisory Company (investment banking boutique). Mr. Paev structured the first Real Estate Investment Trust in Bulgaria (TBI-BAC REIT) and was the REIT’s Executive Director until he joined Address Group, the largest Bulgarian real estate advisory firm, as Executive Director of Address Invest. In 2006 Mr. Paev established his own investment banking firm, SORTIS INVEST. In 2007 SORTIS REAL ESTATE was set up as a real state asset management company and then SORTIS CREDIT, a loan and leasing advisory firm. Educated in Bulgaria, The Netherlands and Germany, Mr. Paev holds a Master’s degree in Banking and Finance and a Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration. He is CFA Charterholder and a former Board member of the Bulgarian CFA Society.

Scott Penwell
Parish Capital

Scott joined Parish Capital in August 2006. As a Director, he is responsible for overseeing the investment team’s activities. This covers the sourcing of investments, the investment pipeline and due diligence processes, and the monitoring of existing investments and their underlying companies. Prior to Parish Capital, Mr. Penwell was a Vice President at BancBoston Capital in London, where he was responsible for originating, executing and managing direct and secondary investments. Mr. Penwell has diverse experience across multiple regions, including the U.K., Eastern Europe, Australia and Southeast Asia. He frequently served as a Board director or observer and has overseen three initial public offerings and eight sales to trade or financial buyers. Prior to joining BancBoston Capital, Mr. Penwell was an investment banker for Robertson Stephens in San Francisco covering the internet infrastructure and business services sectors. Mr. Penwell has a BBA from The University of Michigan, Ann Arbor and an MBA from The Kellogg School of Management

Richard Seewald
Alpha Associates, Zurich

Partner, Investments. Richard has been originating, analyzing, structuring, negotiating and executing private equity investments in the Central European region since 1999. He has been involved in the region since 1990 and prior to joining ALPHA Associates in 2005 was a partner at Benson Oak, a Central European investment banking/private equity group, where he focused on growth capital and buyout opportunities. He participated in investment transactions in the banking sector, TMT sectors, automotive industry and in the retail sector. Earlier in his career, Richard was an associate at CMS Cameron McKenna, a London based international law firm, where he advised on privatizations, mergers and acquisitions and private equity transactions while based in the Prague offices. Richard holds an MBA from the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business, a Doctorate in Law from the New York Law School and a B.A., Business, from Pace University.

Jim Strang
Dunedin Capital Partners

Jim joined Dunedin in 2008. He heads up Dunedin's fund investment program and has overall responsibility for all Dunedin's activities in relation to its third party private equity investment operation. Jim is an honours graduate in business administration, graduating from the University of Edinburgh with First Class honours in 1993 and subsequently completing a Ph.D in management (specialising in the UK IPO market) at Edinburgh University Business School in 1998. Jim also attended the Judge Business School at the University of Cambridge as a faculty scholar graduating with a Masters in finance in 1997. He spent his early career in finance and investment in Edinburgh joining Dunedin Fund Managers Ltd in 1994 where he specialised in small quoted company fund management. He subsequently worked in similar roles for both Edinburgh Fund Managers PLC and Deutsche Bank AG before joining international strategy consultants Bain and Company in London in 2000. At Bain he worked both in Bain's general consulting practice as well as within Bain's Private Equity Group where he consulted to Europe's pre-eminent private equity managers on a wide range of issues. Jim joined Dunedin from Gartmore Private Equity where he was Head of European Buyouts overseeing Gartmore's investment program in european buyout funds and associated co-investments from 2003.

Brian Wardrop
ARX Equity Partners

Brian has been originating, executing, monitoring and exiting private equity investments in Central and Eastern Europe since 1997. Mr. Wardrop is a Managing Partner of Arx Equity Partners (“Arx”). Arx is a Central and Eastern European focused private equity firm targeting lower middle market companies, which are typically valued between €10 million and € 50 million. Arx operates from offices in Bucharest, Budapest, Prague and Warsaw. Mr. Wardrop has led Arx portfolio investments in Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania and Slovenia. Prior to joining Arx, Mr. Wardrop was an Associate and later Principal and head of the Prague office with Baring Communications Equity (Emerging Europe). During his tenure at Baring Communications Equity, Mr. Wardrop played key roles in several telecommunications and media sector investments throughout Central and Eastern Europe. Mr. Wardrop holds a Master’s degree in International Business from Boston University and a Bachelor’s degree from Bishop’s University.

Dr Thomas von Werner
EQT Partners

Thomas joined EQT Partners in October 2006. As of 1 August 2008 he changed into the Warsaw office. Prior to EQT, Dr. von Werner worked as Managing Director for the private equity company Odewald & Compagnie in Berlin, Germany. He started his career as a Consultant for Bain & Company in Munich, Germany. Dr. von Werner completed his doctorate in Business Administration at the Universities of Fribourg (Switzerland) and Cambridge (England) and holds a degree in Economics from the University of Fribourg (Switzerland).

Thomas Wilfling
AXA Private Equity

Thomas is Managing Director at AXA Private Equity, heading the team in Vienna covering Central and Eastern Europe. Thomas joined AXA Private Equity to set up the Vienna office in 2008, after 11 years at UniCredit Group. As a Director at UniCredit Bank Austria AG in Vienna, he acted as a deal team leader arranging LBO- and other acquisition- and structured financings for financial sponsors and strategic players throughout CEE across a broad range of industries since 2005. Before then, he led and executed transactions in Global Structured and Project Finance Telecoms at HypoVereinsbank in Munich, which became part of UniCredit. Thomas Wilfling graduated from EDHEC Business School in France and holds a Diploma and a Master of Science in Accounting and Finance from London School of Economics (LSE).