0100 Conference CEE

Milan Kulich joined Advent in 2007 and focuses on the healthcare and retail and consumer sectors in particular in the CEE region. Prior to Advent, he worked at Deloitte leading M&A and valuations projects across several CEE countries. Milan has an MBA from INSEAD, a BSc in Business Administration from City University, Washington and a BA in Economics from University of Matej Bel, Slovakia Milan’s investments include Concardis GmbH, Devin, Douglas Holding, Nets, NielsenIQ, Partner in Pet Food, Takko and Zentiva.

Kerim Turkmen is a Partner of Mid Europa Partners, joining the Firm in 2007. He is a member of the Investment Advisory and Management Committees, and is responsible for deal sourcing, executing and monitoring of investments. Kerim currently sits on the board of 5 of the Firm’s portfolio companies including Pigu, Symfonia, Intive, Cargus and M+ Grupa. Prior to joining the team, he worked at GMT Communications Partners, a private equity fund specialising in telecommunications and media. Previously, he worked in the Investment Banking Division at Merrill Lynch in London. Kerim holds a B.Eng. in Mechanical Engineering from Imperial College and an M.Sc. in Accounting and Finance from the London School of Economics.

Executive Partner of the leading €165mn PE fund in the Baltics INVL Baltic Sea Growth Fund managed by the leading asset management group in the Baltics – Invalda INVL, active since 1991. Currently serves as deputy chairperson of the largest environmental management group’s AS Eco Baltia supervisory board and chairperson of supervisory board of its subsidiary AS PET Baltija. Before joining INVL was one of the leading M&A experts in Lithuania with extensive experience in transaction structuring and negotiations, who advised local and international clients on deals with the combined value of almost €2 billion. Deimante enjoys travelling, reading and doing sports (kitesurfing, snowboarding and running) in her free time.

At EIF since January 2009, Marco is heading the Lower Mid-Market team investing in equity, hybrid debt / equity and private debt funds across Europe, with a particular focus on the Northern, Eastern and Southern regions. He coordinates the Lower Mid-Market investment activity for several fund-of-funds initiatives, each one with specific geographical scope, (i.e. Turkey, Poland, Baltics, Central Europe, Italy, Portugal). He represents EIF on the Advisory Boards of over 20 funds. Prior to EIF, he worked in direct investments, in an Early Stage VC fund, and in management consulting. Marco holds a M.S. degree in Industrial Engineering and Management.

Andris is Managing Partner of Change Ventures, the largest seed venture capital fund in the Baltic States that focuses exclusively on backing ambitious founders from Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Andris has been a key player in the Baltic ecosystem for a decade, having co-founded the TechHub Riga foundation, the leading Baltic startup event TechChill and the Latvian Startup Association. Andris had a 15 year career as a C-level tech executive in several US, Israeli and European startups, two of which exited for over $100M. He holds an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business and is a Kauffman Fellow (Class 22).

Ondrej started his carreer as an entrepreneur when still in college. In the late 90s he co-founded and managed several companies in event management, consulting and IT. Relatively soon he’d realized that he doesn’t have what it takes to make a truly successful entrepreneur, so he turned consultant and angel investor. He also founded and ran Czech chapter of the networking platform First Tuesday and after the decay of the global organization after the dot com bust, he morphed it into a member-based networking and knowledge platform TUESDAY Business Network which became a center point of the early startup movement in the Czech Republic and Slovakia. In 2004 – 2008 he served as Senior Investment Director with MCI Management, VC & PE firm based out of Poland. In 2009 he together with Jan started preparations for the launch of Credo which took place in late 2010 when it raised its pilot fund with 18 million euros. In 2009 he was one of the investors in the Czech edition of TV show Dragons’ Den. Currently Ondrej is focused on investments in the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Romania, he also looks at Bulgaria. His main passion is finding outstanding founders and great talent, and helping them with guidance and advice.

Head of CEE & Baltics

Maciej Ćwikiewicz has over 15 years of experience in private equity and strategic advisory. Between 2009 and 2014 he was an Investment Director at ARX Equity Partners (a private equity fund investing in medium-sized enterprises in Central and Eastern Europe), where he focused on industrial and service sectors in Poland. In the strategic advisory, Maciej Ćwikiewicz worked, among others, for McKinsey & Co, Kolaja & Partners (now Alvarez & Marsal) or PwC. He advised primarily private equity funds during commercial due diligence or the performance improvement programs. He advised also entrepreneurs-owners of Polish manufacturing companies such as Kross, POCH, or Dr Irena Eris. On selected projects he acted as an interim manager, such as Chief Restructuring Officer for RUCH, Kross, or Sanitec Budfarfor. Maciej Ćwikiewicz gained international experience in the United States, where in 2000-2001 he worked as an Analyst in Aviation Research at Portland International Airport, and also in Indonesia where he worked at Elnusa in 2002. Maciej Ćwikiewicz graduated from the Warsaw School of Economics, Finance and Banking in 2000 and obtained his MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business in 2009. Completed the Venture Capital program at the University of California at Berkeley.