0100 Virtual CEE
PE & VC Virtual Conference will help you to navigate the business through the COVID-19 situation.
We guarantee a world-class lineup of high-profile speakers. Content of the conference is composed exclusively from top LP & GP senior members.
Nathalie von Niederhaeusern, Managing Director, is a member of the BlackRock Private Equity Partners (PEP) group within BlackRock Alternative Investors. She is heading PEP's investment team in EMEA as well as the group’s secondary practice and is a member of PEP's Investment Committee. Ms. von Niederhaeusern has more than 20 years of experience in the private equity and corporate finance industry. She started her career in 1997 at Zurich Financial Services, Switzerland, in the Mergers & Acquisitions department, focusing on the life and non-life insurance sectors. In 1999, she joined Swiss Re, Switzerland, focusing on the company's strategic, long-term investments in the insurance industry. As from 2001, she worked for Swiss Re's Private Equity Fund of Funds unit, where she was responsible for investments in European and US based private equity fund managers. In 2005, she moved to New York, United States, to establish the North American presence of the unit. Prior to joining BlackRock Private Equity Partners, Ms. von Niederhaeusern was Head Private Equity and Investment Monitoring and member of the Investment Committee at Swiss Re Private Equity Partners. Ms. von Niederhaeusern holds a Master Degree in Business Administration from the University of Bern, and is a CFA and CAIA charterholder.
Tomas Kubica (London) joined KKR in 2012 in London, and spent two years in KKR’s Menlo Park office in 2016-18. He is a member of the Technology, Media, & Telecommunications industry team, with a focus on technology. Mr. Kubica has been involved with KKR’s investments in Optiv, OVH, SoftwareOne, Arago, SBB/Telemach Group, Acteon, Avincis, and TDC. Before joining KKR, he was with Goldman Sachs International in London and McKinsey & Co in Prague. Mr. Kubica received his degrees from INSEAD and State University of New York Empire State College, both with valedictorian honors, and is a CFA and CAIA charterholder.
Jonathan Cosgrave is a Managing Director at The Carlyle Group and Co-head of Carlyle’s Ireland Fund. Mr. Cosgrave is based at Carlyle’s office in Dublin and focuses on growth capital and buyout investment opportunities across all industry sectors in the Irish market. Prior to joining Carlyle in 2014, he was a Principal at Warburg Pincus in London, where he invested in growth capital and buyout opportunities across Europe, predominantly in the healthcare sector. Jonathan joined Warburg Pincus in 2004 from JPMorgan’s London office where he had spent three years within the investment banking division providing corporate finance and mergers & acquisitions advisory services to UK publicly-quoted companies. Mr. Cosgrave is a board director of a number of Irish companies including McCauley Pharmacy Group, the largest Irish-owned retail pharmacy chain, Carroll Cuisine, an Irish producer of branded cooked ham and chilled ready meals, Lily O’Brien’s, a producer of premium boxed chocolates (exited), Sports Surgery Clinic, the leading Irish provider of orthopaedic joint-replacement surgery and sports medicine, and Learning Pool, a technology and content focused eLearning company.
Nadim El Gabbani is a Senior Managing Director in the Private Equity Group and is based in London. Since joining Blackstone in 2008, Mr. El Gabbani has been involved in Blackstone’s investments in BankUnited, Bayview, Exeter, First Eagle, Lendmark, Michaels Stores, Service King, Sithe Global Power, Stearns, and TeamHealth. He serves as director of Stearns Lending. Before joining Blackstone, Mr. El Gabbani worked at Qalaa Holdings, where he was involved in the evaluation and execution of private equity transactions in North America and the Middle East. Mr. El Gabbani received a B.A. in Physics from Columbia College and an M.B.A. with High Distinction from Harvard Business School, where he was selected as a Baker Scholar.
Francesco is a senior member of Pantheon's European investment team and a member of the European Investment Committee, the Co-investment Committee and the Global Credit Committee. Francesco was previously with Unigestion, where he managed the firm’s global secondaries programme. Prior to Unigestion he was a partner and co-founder of the European venture capital firm DN Capital, having spent three years prior to that as part of the European investment team at Advent International. He has a BA in East Asian studies from Princeton University and received an MBA from Insead. In addition to his native English and Italian, Francesco also speaks French. Francesco is based in London.
Mr. Jeffrey leads StepStone’s activities in Europe and is a member of the private equity team, focusing on investments in Europe and the Middle East and co-investments. He is also involved in the Firm’s ESG and diversity initiatives, as well as various investment and management activities. Prior to joining StepStone in 2012, Mr. Jeffrey was a managing partner at Parish Capital where he founded the firm’s European and Asian practices and oversaw the secondary and co-investment businesses. Before that he served as managing director of Bank of America’s European private equity group. Previously, Mr. Jeffrey was a managing director and head of BancBoston Capital’s European and Asian operations. Mr. Jeffrey received an MA from Cambridge University and is a qualified chartered accountant.
David Atterbury focuses on European secondary investments. He joined HarbourVest in 2004 and has led a number of European secondary transactions, including Absolute Private Equity and SVG Capital plc. He currently serves on the advisory boards of funds managed by Abénex Capital, Bridgepoint Development Capital, Clyde Blowers Capital, Magnum Capital, Motion Equity Partners, and NewQuest Capital Partners. David joined HarbourVest after five years with Abbey National Treasury Services Plc, where he was Director of Private Equity. His responsibilities at Abbey National included the development of a direct private equity portfolio and the subsequent disposal of a large diversified portfolio of partnership commitments and direct holdings. His previous experience also includes five years with PricewaterhouseCoopers, which included a one-year assignment to Bridgepoint Capital in London. David received a BSc (with Honours) in International Management and French from the University of Bath in 1994, and completed professional examinations in 1997 to qualify as a Chartered Accountant.
John is responsible for the firm’s European Technology, Media and Telecom sector team. John joined the firm in 2009, having previously been an investment professional at The Carlyle Group and 3i. John began his career at UBS Investment Bank. John is a member of Chatham House and the Royal Economic Society, and is a trustee of Little Bleeders, a charity raising awareness for children with blood disorders. John received his BSc in Economics from the London School of Economics.
Partner, Credit Partners and Senior Portfolio Manager, CVC Credit Partners (formerly CVC Cordatus). He founded CVC Cordatus in 2006 and led the development and management of the European CLO, managed account and Credit Opportunity businesses. Prior to this he was a senior director in the European Leveraged Finance group at Deutsche Bank (Bankers Trust) , and also worked in M&A at Charterhouse Bank and Citibank in London and New York. Jonathan holds an MA in French and History from the University of Oxford
Christophe de Dardel, Managing Director, is Head of Private Equity, a member of the Private Equity Investment Committee, of the Global Research Commitee and a member of Unigestion’s Executive Committee. He was most recently Head of Portfolio Management within the Private Equity team. He joined Unigestion in January 2001. Christophe previously spent more than ten years on several continentsat the Société Générale de Surveillance, a global inspection and testing group. He then established and ran the Swisscom Venture Fund, a corporate fund aimed at financing entrepreneurial initiatives of Swisscom collaborators. Christophe holds a Degree in Engineering from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich.
Neal is a Managing Director in the Secondary Investments team and a member of the Investment Committee. He focuses on European transactions and leads the European secondary sourcing effort. He rejoined AlpInvest Partners in 2015 from Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, where he focused on secondaries and co-investments in Europe. Neal originally joined AlpInvest in 2003 in the New York office, and was ultimately a Principal based in Hong Kong leading the firm’s Secondary efforts in Asia through 2013. Previously, Neal was with CIBC World Markets’ Mergers & Acquisitions Investment Banking division. He currently serves as a Director on the Columbia University Business School Private Equity Board. Neal received his MBA from Columbia University in New York and an Honors Business degree (HBA) from the Ivey School of Business at Western University in Canada. He is also a CFA Charterholder.
Frédéric Collard is Managing Director within Ardian, the Continental Europe’s leading private investment company with US$ 60 billion of assets managed and advised. He held several positions as financial analyst and fund manager until 1990 when he joined the private equity team of Dominique Senequier at GAN/ Compagnie JP Elkann. In 1996, he participated to foundation of AXA Private Equity which became ARDIAN in 2013. He was a partner of its LBO Mid Cap team until 2010. Since then, he seconds Dominique Gaillard in the management of AXA Capital, a €320m fund taking minority stakes in listed companies. He also contributes his LBO experience to the Co-investment team. Frédéric holds an MBA from the University of Paris-Dauphine and is a certified Financial Analyst.
Ivan first joined PAI in 2000 as a member of the Investment Group, where he was involved in a number of transactions including Elis. In 2004 Ivan started to focus on PAI’s investor relations and fundraising activities. In 2008, he joined Fondations Capital as Partner, Chief Operating Officer. Late 2010, he rejoined PAI as member of the Investor Team. He started his career at Paribas, holding an e-business consulting role to various business lines within the investment bank in Paris, New York and London. Ivan graduated from the Institut National des Télécommunications (INT) and holds a Master’s Degree in Management from the Université d’Evry. His French and English are fluent, and he has notions of German.
Jessica Otte is a Director within the Investor Relations Team for StepStone, responsible for the firm’s client relationships across Germany and Luxembourg. Prior to joining StepStone she spent 9 years at Goldman Sachs, based both in London and latterly in Frankfurt. She holds an MA in Political Science from the University of Edinburgh and was called to the Bar in 2008.
Maurice Hernandez joined Accel-KKR in 2007 and is based in the firm’s London office where he leads buyout and growth equity investment activities across Europe. Prior to joining AKKR, Maurice was a member of Deutsche Bank’s Mergers & Acquisitions team where he was involved in a variety of mergers, acquisitions and buyouts focused on the software and technology-enabled services sectors. Maurice previously worked at Needham & Company where he worked with emerging growth technology businesses on mergers, acquisitions and capital raising. Earlier in his career, Maurice also worked at Excite.com, a leading Internet search engine and services portal. Maurice is involved with AKKR’s investments in Kerridge CS, Kimble, One.com, Reapit and Smart Communications. Maurice was involved with the firm’s past investments in Clavis Insight (acquired by Ascential plc in 2017 for $130 million), HighJump Software (acquired by Körber AG in 2017 for $750 million), Zinc Ahead (acquired by Veeva Systems in 2015 for $130 million), Endurance International Group (acquired by a private equity consortium in 2011 for $1.0 billion), iTradeNetwork (acquired by Roper Technologies in 2010 for $525 million) and Saber (acquired by EDS, later Hewlett Packard Enterprise, in 2007 for $460 million). Maurice received a B.S. in Applied Economics and Management from Cornell University.
Andreas Bohn is Co-CEO & Managing Partner of SwanCap Partners GmbH which, together with its Luxemburg affiliate and regulated AIFM, SwanCap Investment Management S.A., forms a leading independent private markets investment management platform with offices in Munich, Luxembourg, Milan and New York. Prior to joining SwanCap in 2015, Andreas worked for 22 years in a wide range of investment banking and private equity related functions at UniCredit/Hypovereinsbank, most recently serving as a Management Board member at UniCredit Bank AG and as a member of the Global UniCredit Corporate & Investment Banking Executive Committee. He co-founded and for many years led UniCredit’s Leveraged Finance business, which provided total debt financing in excess of €50 billion for over 400 private equity sponsored transactions in the European market. He also established the Private Equity / Principal Investments business of UniCredit, which committed a total of ca. €5bn to virtually all leading private equity sponsors, through primary and secondary fund investments as well as co-investments. Andreas is a veteran of the European LBO and Private Equity industry. Andreas received an MBA from Ludwig-Maximilians University and a PhD in Strategic Management from the University of Munich.
David is a Partner at 83North, based in the London office. He joined JUST EAT in March 2006 to launch its UK business, and was appointed CEO in January 2013. David led JUST EAT in the UK from startup to becoming Europe’s largest technology IPO in a decade. As CEO of JUST EAT David was responsible for leading several major investments and acquisitions. Highlights include acquiring leading technology businesses in Australia (menulog), Spain (la nevera roja) , Italy (Pizza Bo), Canada (Skip the Dishes), UK (hungryhouse and Flypay) and LATAM (ifood). In 2014, David was named Entrepreneur of the Year at the Investor Allstars Awards and he was also named as one of Britain's most influential people in the Debrett's 500 2015, 2016 and 2017. David was a Special Advisor to 83North for several years before joining as a partner in 2017.
Billy is a General Partner at Draper Associates. Prior to joining DA, Billy founded Mobber, a social referral platform that allowed several users to tweet a message simultaneously (eventually kicked off Twitter API, a badge of honor). He then went on to work at Facebook and Apartment List. Billy is responsible for early-stage investments in companies like Robinhood, Samba TV, Pointy, Packlane, LawTrades, Tempo Automation, and others. Billy was listed on the Forbes 30 Under 30 for venture capital in 2016.
Michiel is a General Partner at Northzone, focusing on SaaS, healthcare and AI. He leads Northzone’s investments in Catawiki, FreightHub, Personio and Aidence. Prior to joining Northzone, Michiel was an investor at Accel London. Originally from the Netherlands, Michiel spent the early years of his career at BCG before founding Digital Jones, an artificial intelligence company, in Silicon Valley. Michiel has a graduate degree in physics from Delft University of Technology and an MBA from Harvard Business School.
Dr. Christian Nagel is Co-Founder and Partner of Earlybird and based at the Berlin office. Christian has more than 24 years of entrepreneurial and investment experience. He was Chairman of the Board of Tipp24 AG (Prime Standard Frankfurt Exchange: TIM) and Interhyp AG (Prime Standard Frankfurt Exchange: IYP), which returned more than 50x the original Earlybird investment. Up till the trade sale to SMSC (NASDAQ: SMSC) he also served on the board of BridgeCo AG (Zurich). He currently serves on the boards of CrossEngage (Berlin), N26 (Berlin), ShapeShift (Zug/Denver), smava (Berlin) and Tradico (Munich). Prior to founding Earlybird in 1997, Christian, together with a group of investors, acquired various companies from the Treuhandanstalt (the former East-German state holding) and gained operational experience. He was a shareholder and an Executive Director of HNP Präzisionsteile GmbH & Co. KG, SMB Industrieholding GmbH, DH Industrieholding Hohenthurm GmbH and a number of other subsidiary companies of these holding companies. Previously, Christian worked as an Engagement Manager with McKinsey & Co. Inc. focusing on restructuring, strategy and M&A projects within various industries. He holds a Diplom-Wirtschaftsingenieur degree (Industrial Engineering, MSc equivalent) from the Technical University of Hamburg, specializing in process engineering and a PhD degree in management from the University of St. Gallen.
Reshma is Founding Partner at Seedcamp, Europe’s first seed fund, and has invested in 240+ companies since launch in 2007. Reshma is passionate about the intersection of technology and business and has degrees in Engineering and Business from UPenn and M&T. Early on in her career, during the height of the dot com boom, Reshma worked in M&A and venture capital across B2B Software and Internet services businesses in the US and India. She had a helping hand in building MakeMyTrip (NASDAQ) in its formative days. Following on from this, Reshma went to INSEAD and earned her MBA, fell in love with Europe and stayed on to work in Commercial and Marketing Strategy at Vodafone. Starting Seedcamp in 2007 was a once in a lifetime opportunity and one that she jumped into with a strong desire to help the European founder realize global success.
Martin is an advisor and angel investor with 15 years’ experience as a professional investor, primarily as former General Partner in Creandum (first VC in Spotify), where he was responsible for multiple exits a.o. Jays AB (IPO), IPtronics (acquired by Mellanox) and Nanoradio (acquired by Samsung). He is an investor in London based Kindred Capital, Felix Capital and Frog Capital where he is the Chairman of the Board. Martin has started multiple companies and he is or has recently been on the board of No Isolation (N), Automile (US), Appear TV (N), Vivino (US) and Auto-Butler (DK). In addition, he recently invested in the Slovakian flying car company AeroMobil. Martin's track record includes more than 15 years of operational experience as a CEO and more than 25 years of board experience from tech companies.
Nenad Marovac has more than 25 years of venture capital and private equity investment experience in the technology and media sectors. Nenad is the Founder and Managing Partner of DN Capital. Prior to DN Capital, Nenad was a Partner at Advent International in London, where he focused on TMT investments. Nenad focuses on investments in marketplaces, software as a service (SAAS), fintech, consumer mobile applications and digital health companies. Amongst his select investments are Shazam Entertainment (sold to Apple), Auto1 (largest online marketplace for used cars), Apsmart (acquired by Thomson Reuters), Book A Tiger, Datanomic (acquired by Oracle), Endeca, (acquired by Oracle), Eve Sleep (IPO London), Happn, Hometogo, Hostmaker, Joblift, Mister Spex, Performance Horizon Group, Purplebricks (IPO London), Tbricks (acquired by Orc) and Quandoo (acquired by Recruit Holding). Nenad is also the Chairman of the Venture Capital Board of Invest Europe and an active member of YPO in London and Berlin. Nenad received an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School.
Martin Villig is the co-founder of Bolt (former Taxify), one of the fastest-growing transportation platforms in the world with investors including Daimler and Didi Chuxing. Bolt helps millions of people around the world to get around cities in an easier, quicker and more reliable way. Martin has been an entrepreneur for 20 years, has founded 6 companies and worked at Skype, Fortumo and NASDAQ Tallinn Stock Exchange. In 2013, he teamed up with his brother Markus to build the first version of Bolt. Today, Bolt has more than 15 million customers and 500,000 drivers on its platform in more than 25 countries worldwide.
James joined Balderton in 2013. Since then, he has led Balderton's investments in a number of sectors and geographies, covering healthtech, manufacturing, mobile productivity, developer tools and virtual and augmented reality. He sits as a board member and observer for multiple portfolio companies including Sophia Genetics, Sunrise ( acquired by Microsoft ), Cloud9IDE ( acquired by Amazon ), 3DHubs, Sketchfab and Crowdcube. Prior to joining Balderton, James helped to launch and run one of the UK's first social venture funds, providing support and capital to social enterprises with a special focus on the education, healthcare and financial sectors. Before this James worked with entrepreneurs and businesses in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, with Atomico Ventures, the Guardian Media Group and as a consultant with McKinsey & Company. As well as the professional experiences above, James has worked as an adviser to a number of start-ups and social enterprises, and in 2011 as a Specialist Adviser to Parliament. James has an MA in Politics, Philosophy and Economics from Oxford University and occasionally lectures for the University on aspects of responsible capitalism and the social impact of technology.
François Auque is Chairman of the Investment Committee of Airbus Ventures since July 2016. Previously he was President of Airbus Defence and Space France and Head of Space Systems, Member of Airbus Group Executive Committee. He was appointed Chief Executive Officer of Astrium in 2000, now merged with Cassidian and Airbus Military into Airbus Defence and Space since 2014. Previously, he was Chief Financial Officer together with Managing Director for satellites of Aerospatiale Matra after having been Chief Financial Officer of Aerospatiale, one of the three EADS founding companies, now Airbus, since 1991. He spent his earlier career with the Suez Group as CFO of Banque La Hénin and later Vice President of Finance and International Development at Credisuez and the French Cour des comptes. He graduated from the École des Hautes Études Commerciales (HEC), the Institut d’Études Politiques and is an alumnus of École Nationale d’Administration (ENA).
During his career Alex has been involved with delivering £500m+ of equity and debt solutions to technology companies. Alex joined Silicon Valley Bank in 2010 and helped to build SVB in the UK and Ireland to provide banking and lending solutions to technology companies. Prior to SVB, Alex was Investment Manager at TTP Ventures, where he invested in and managed a number of technology companies. Alex previously co-founded TISS Ltd and developed a range of security systems for transport vehicles. As Managing Director, Alex raised several rounds of venture capital funding and helped TISS to grow sales in 15 countries to transport and logistics companies. TISS won the Queen’s Award for International Trade in 2014.
Ian manages new fund investments and a portfolio of >$1bn in existing commitments to venture funds. Ian began his career as an accountant at Ernst & Young before joining Royal Bank of Scotland, where he was focused on structured property transactions. Prior to British Business Bank, he was part of the team at Infinity SDC, an early stage data centre business.
Jan Miczaika joined HV Holtzbrinck Ventures as a partner in 2017. Previously Jan was COO at Wooga, a Berlin-based developer of mobile games (and a HV investment). Straight out of university Jan co-founded Hitmeister, an e-commerce marketplace later sold to Real - METRO Group. Since 2007 Jan has also been an angel investor in almost 20 companies including Blacklane, Audibene (sold to EQT/Sivantos), MAR (sold to Grünenthal Pharma), Homelike, Wooga and Jodel. Jan studied Business Administration at HHL in Leipzig and in the Ph.D. program at WHU.
Jon Koplin joined Cisco Investments in 2017 and leads the EMEA team responsible for investments, joint ventures, and acquisitions. Previous to Cisco, Jon worked as an early-stage technology investor with European family offices. Before moving into the investment arena, Jon held senior operating roles at Google and Samsung in Europe and Asia. Early in his career, Jon worked in Silicon Valley and in startups and was part of the management team of NetBeans (acquired by Sun Microsystems).
Rajaa Mekouar-Schneider is the Head of PE for a prominent Luxembourg single family office and the elected Chairwoman of the LPEA. Her PE roles included General Partner (GP) positions at VC / PE funds Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Lazard European Private Equity Partners and Change Capital Partners in London. Between 2008 and 2016, Rajaa was the founding director of Maera Capital, a boutique dedicated to co-investing with family offices. Most recently she was the Head of Syndicate at family-backed co-investment platform, Kharis Capital, in Luxembourg. She is a graduate of HEC Grande Ecole in France and holds an MBA from INSEAD. She speaks French, English, German, Spanish and Arabic.
Sujay is the CEO and Co-Founder of Frontier Car Group (FCG), a Berlin-based and emerging markets focused automotive marketplace. FCG has raised $150M+ from Naspers, Balderton, and TPG Growth. Prior, Sujay was a partner at Kingsway Capital, a London-based emerging-markets focused fund. Sujay was on the founding team of Hired.com (a talent marketplace) as its COO, which now operates in Australia, Europe, and the US. Before Hired, Sujay entered Harvard at age 15, before leaving with a Thiel Fellowship. Sujay was named one of Forbes’ 30 under 30 and one of Goldman Sachs’ top 100 intriguing entrepreneurs in 2018.