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People: November 2001

Calpers loses chief investment officer, Steingraber appointed new non-executive director at 3i and Myners relinquishes Gartmore chairmanship….

• Calpers chief investment officer, Daniel Szente, resigned from the board. His resignation occurred during his battle with a lawsuit aiming to limit portfolio managers' salaries. Szente will take up a position with San Francisco-based McMorgan & Co
  
  
• Chris Johnson left his position as chairman of global leveraged finance at Merrill Lynch in New York. Johnson was responsible for overseeing relationships with private equity firms as part of his role as manager of the origination section of the business. His departure coincides with a period of restructuring in the bank's leveraged finance business.
  
  
• DB Capital Partners appointed Fritz Seikovsky to head the firm's Frankfurt office. DB Capital Partners recently took control of the whole of Deutsche Bank's private equity business. Seikovsky was previously at Bain & Company for 16 years and most recently was a senior officer at venture capital firm, evolution.
  
  
• London law firm Gouldens hired Matthew Hudson, former private equity partner at SJ Berwin, as a non-executive. Hudson will aid the strategic development of the firm's private equity practice.
  
  
• 3i appointed Fred Steingraber to its board of directors this month. Steingraber is the first non-Brit to join the board, reflecting the firm's determination to establish its global credentials. Steingraber was chairman of the board and chief executive of AT Kearney until last year.
  
  
• Guy Hands reached an agreement with his employer Nomura to grant independence to Hands' principal finance group and to set up his own fund. The new firm will be Terra Firma Capital Partners and the fund, Terra Firma Partners II, will focus on investments in businesses with turnaround potential.
  
  
• Krish Prabhu, former chief operating officer of Alcatel, joined venture and buy-out firm Morgenthaler as a partner. He will be responsible for identifying, nurturing and guiding early-stage firms.
  
  
• SJ Berwin added Pierre-Louis Perin to its private equity and venture capital practice in its Paris office. Perin joins from Deloitte & Touche Juridique et Fiscal.
  
  
• George P Stamas is to leave Deutsche Banc Alex Brown to become a venture capitalist. Stamas, who joined Deutsche Banc in 1999 will join Baltimore firm New Enterprise Associates as a venture partner in January.
  
  
• Washington-based Carlyle Group named Chris Ullman as vice president for corporate communications this month. Ullman was previously associate director for communications at the US Office of Mangement and Budget. He will now serve as Carlyle's spokesman.
  
  
• Index Ventures, the pan-European venture capital firm, has appointed Barry Appelman, chief technology officer of America Online, to its advisory board.
  
  
• Mark Florman is to head Doughty Hanson's investment team in the Nordic region. He will be based in London and Stockholm. Florman previously served as chief operating officer of ArosMaizels Corporate Finance.
  
  
• Guy Eastman has left Hermes Investment Management to join Schroder Ventures. Eastman will join as a director and be responsible for the selection of European private equity funds.
  
  
• Paul Myners announced that he is to relinquish his position as chairman of Gartmore Investment Management. Myners, author of the government-backed review of institutional investment, has held the chairmanship for 15 years but may now move into a more formal government role.
  
  
• European VC firm Favonius Ventures has hired Matthias Allgaier and Stephen Duckett as managing directors of its software and communications fund.  Both new members of the Favonius team were previously managing directors of Internet Capital Group, Europe.
  
  
• NatWest Development Capital, part of the Royal Bank of Scotland's private equity division, has added Hazel McIntyre to its team in Scotland. McIntyre has been with the bank since 1988 and most recently served as a director in the leveraged finance department.
  
  
• Al Gore, failed US presidential candidate, has joined LA-based Metropolitan West Financial. Gore will work on developing the firm's private equity strategies in biotechnology and IT.
  
  
• MTS Health partners named Andrew M Paul, a former senior partner at Welsh Carson Anderson and Stowe, as chairman. MTS is a US-based merchant bank specialising in healthcare investments.
  
  
• Adveq partners has appointed Graeme Scott Johnson as managing director and head of business development. Johnson's appointment coincides with the Swiss-based firm's announcement that it is to expand into Germany from next year.
  
  
• Gerard Cunningham, formerly executive in residence of the Mayfield Fund, joined ABS Ventures as venture partner. ABS is an early-stage VC firm affiliated with Deutsche Bank and Cunningham will be investing in business software companies.
  
  
• Cynthia Ringo and Ann Zeichner are to join San Francisco-based venture capital firm, Blueprint Ventures. They will join as general partner and venture partner respectively.
  
  
• Forward Ventures, a UK VC firm focused on commercialising university technology research, has named Richard Exley and Helen Kist-Nairn as directors. Kist-Nairn will focus on Heriot-Watt University, having previously founded the Technology Ventures Programme at Stanford. Exley, former head of intellectual property at Sheffield University, will develop partnerships at Leeds University.
  
  
• Massachusetts-based Battery Ventures hired Stephen Terry as a venture partner. Terry, formerly of Credit Suisse First Boston, will help portfolio companies generate capital from other private equity firms.
  
  
• Peter Flynn has joined Pantheon Ventures as marketing director. He joins from Fleming Asset Management.
  
  
• IDG Ventures has opened a new office in Boston and has appointed Michael Greeley from Polaris Venture Partners as managing general partner to head the Boston operation. 
  
  
• Royal Bank Private Equity has added another three recruits to the 15 that it has already taken on this year. Ian Beattie, Scott Coates and Freddie Lee join from Rothschild Asset Management, Ernst & Young and McKinsey respectively.
  
  
• Italian private equity firm Wizard Partners has hired Francesco Noseda, to head its new Paris office. Noseda is a hotel specialist and joins from Swissotel in New York.
  
  
• Friends, Ivory and Sime Private Equity named Kevin Whittle as a portfolio director within its portfolio management group. He joined from EWS group where he was chief executive for the past two years.