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People: May 2003

More executives leave Swiss Life Private Equity Partners, David McKenna returns to Advent International and Carlyle hires former Goldman Sachs executive...

Europe

Departures

• Swiss Life Private Equity Partners has ‘severed its ties' with its chief executive David Salam and chief operating officer Thomas Grotzer because of ‘insurmountable differences of opinion.' Earlier this year the firm lost Dominik Meyer and Michael Miller, both partners, also because of ‘differing views on the management of the business'. Ralph Aerni, an investment manager, left at the end of last year.
  
• Graham Sturrock is leaving his present role as head of investments and mezzanine at Bank of Scotland at the end of this month to head up the bank's project finance division. A replacement has yet to be announced. The new role will see him managing long-term financing in areas such as natural resources, telecoms and media.
  
• Hans Vanoorbeek has parted from London-based BC Partners to set up his own firm focusing on buy-out opportunities in Benelux. Vanoorbeek's departure was amicable and BC stands to gain from his deal generating activity.

Appointments

• Finnish private equity firm MB Funds has recruited Eero Niiva as partner. Niiva joins the firm from the corporate banking operations of leading Finnish investment bank Carnegie. The appointment is effective as of September 2003. MB funds specialises in Nordic management buy-outs, privatisations and outsourcing projects.
  
• Frederick Frank, a veteran biotech banker from Lehman Brothers, has been appointed adviser to Munich-based Global Life Science Ventures. Frank will be responsible for developing portfolio companies from the firm's new E143m fund. Frank has more than 40 years experience of advising companies in pharmaceutical, biotechnology and medical device sectors on initial public offerings And mergers and acquisitions. He will continue as director and vice-chairman of Lehman Brother's US-based biotechnology investment banking division.
  
• US private equity giant Kohlberg Kravis Roberts has appointed Carlyle's Jaques Garaialde as a managing director. Garaialde will be primarily responsible for KKR's business in France. Garaialde was most recently managing director for European venture investments at Carlyle Group and had previously been a senior partner at the Boston Consulting Group.
  
• Germany-based venture firm, Wellington Partners, has recruited Dr Thomas Widmann as a venture partner for its life science team. Widmann will be responsible for supporting the firm's existing portfolio companies as well as playing an active role in selecting new investments. Widmann was a member of the team that founded successful start-up Actelion in 1997.
  
• Jon Macintosh has joined investment bank Lehman Brothers as a managing director and principal of its private equity division in London. Macintosh will work with Julian Entwistle in Lehman's mezzanine department. Macintosh joins Lehman from another captive private equity firm DB Capital Partners, part of Deutsche Bank. He previously worked for Morgan Grenfell Private Equity.
  
• ABN Amro has made a number of senior appointments in a bid to bolster its presence as a leading advisor and provider of leveraged finance to the increasingly active European private equity buy-out market. Wieland Janssens joins the bank as a managing director in the financial sponsors group from Schroder Salomon Smith Barney where he held a similar role. Oleg Pankratov and Steve Jones have joined ABN Amro's leveraged finance teams from JP Morgan's corporate securitisation and leveraged finance teams respectively. Ajan van Rijn joins as a director from the leveraged finance syndicate at Deutsche Bank.
  
• European law firm SJ Berwin has announced the recruitment of four professionals to its Paris office private equity team. Christophe Digoy and Maxence Bloch joined the firm as partners to expand the firm's private equity practice together with two associates, Jerome Jouhanneaud and David Diamant. Digoy specialises in leveraged buy-outs, public to private transactions, mergers and acquisitions and stock exchange regulations. Bloch specialises in merger and acquisition activities, with a particular focus on leveraged buy-outs and takeovers in public companies. Both Digoy and Bloch join SJ Berwin from Clifford Chance.
  
• Pan-European buy-out specialist Industri Kapital has become the latest private equity firm to strengthen its French operations with the appointment of Dan Soudry as associate director. Soudry joins Industri Kapital from ABN Amro Capital, where he was associate director in the buy-out team. He previously served in the corporate banking division of Paribas and was a director in the private equity practice at KPMG Corporate Finance.
  
• Peter Hoffmann-Fischer has joined Munich, Germany-based venture capital firm Techno Venture Management. TVM named Hoffmann-Fischer as a senior adviser of corporate finance strategy for its life sciences team, a role in which he will provide advice to the team on investment decisions and contribute to corporate development and financial strategy decisions. He previously worked for Robertson Stephens' European investment banking operations.
  
• Deutsche Venture Capital, a Berlin, Germany-based venture capital firm, has promoted chief financial officer Juergen Gerlach to managing partner. He will be responsible for finance, investment and fund controlling, reporting, investor relations and management of the firm's back office. Gerlach joined DVC in 1999.
  
• CVC Capital Partners has appointed Peter Tornquist as a managing director. He will assume direct responsibility for the Nordic market. He joins CVC after seven years at Lehman Brothers, where he was managing director with responsibility for Lehman's Nordic investment banking business and its European industrial group based in London.
  
• Andrew Paszkowski, a former Texaco divisional managing director, has joined Nova Capital Management as a portfolio director. He has over 25 years' experience in operational and business development, including positions with Gulf Oil International and Texaco. He will be responsible for the management of the firm's first portfolio acquired from LICA Development Capital in October 2002.
  
• 3i has promoted experienced technology investor Ian Lobley to head of technology in France. Lobley has been with the firm for 15 years and became a director of the firm in 1994. Most recently his responsibilities focused on 3i's information technology investment activities in the UK.

North America

Appointments

• The US National Venture Capital Association has appointed Jeffrey Harris, Warburg Pincus managing director, as its chairman for the coming year. The NVCA board has also announced seven new directors who will each serve four-year terms. The seven new directors who have joined the NVCA board are Guy de Chazal of Morgan Stanley Venture Partners, Dennis Dougherty of Intersouth Partners, Ansbert Gadicke of MPM Capital, Walter Kortschak of Summit Partners, Heidi Roizen of Mobius Venture Capital, Salem Schuchman of Apax Partners and Lip Bu Tan of Walden International.
  
• Brad Bernstein has joined US FTVentures as partner. Bernstein joins the firm from Oak Hill Capital Management, where he specialised in outsourcing, marketing, technology-enabled and insurance services. Bernstein will lead the business services investment team at FTVentures and will manage the firm's newly created New York office.
  
• US venture firm Enterprise Partners has recruited Carl Eibl as managing director and chief operating officer. Eibl joins the firm from Maxwell Technologies, a publicly held manufacturer of electronic components and systems. Eibl previously held senior positions in the biotechnology sector including a role as president and CEO of Mycogen.
  
• Blackstone Group has appointed Prakash Melwani, a founder of Vestar Capital Partners, as a senior partner in New York. Prior to joining Blackstone, Melwani was Vestar's chief investment officer. He previously worked with management buy-out groups at The First Boston Corporation and with NM Rothschild in Hong Kong and London.
  
• Early-stage venture capital firm Crescendo Ventures has appointed Wayne Cantwell as venture partner. Cantwell will support the firm's semiconductor activities and is already working with several of Crescendo's portfolio companies. Cantwell is the former CEO and president of inSilicon Corporation and has nearly 20 years' experience in the semiconductor sector in the areas of international operations, sales and general management.
  
• Standard Life Investments Private Equity has recruited Dan Cahill as managing director for North America, as part of a drive to increase the global reach of the firm. Cahill will be based in Boston and will be responsible for formulating and managing Standard Life's US private equity investment strategy. His previous position was with State Street Global Advisers fund of funds division, Wilton Asset Management.
  
• NewYork-based buy-out specialist Silver Lake Partners has recruited Ed Zander as managing director. Zander will join the firm later this summer. Zander previously served as president and chief operating officer at Sun Microsystems where he spent 15 years, until he stepped down in July 2002.
  
• Chris Greendale has joined US-based Kodiak Venture Partners, a seed and early-stage communications firm, as a venture partner. In his new position Greendale will be responsible for evaluating and initiating software-related investment opportunities, specialising in the areas of software development, software services, systems integration and consulting sectors.
  
• California-based venture capital firm Bessemer Venture Partners has appointed Devish Garg as an operating partner to assist with the roll out of the firm's semiconductor sector focus. Garg joins Bessemer from Broadcom's security business unit where he was general manager. He previously served in sales management at electronic design automation company Synopsys as well as working at LSI Logic and National Semiconductor.
  
• Boston-based Fidelity Ventures, the early-stage information technology and telecommunications venture arm of Fidelity Investments, has recruited former Charles River Ventures professional Dave Power as partner. Power joined Charles River Ventures in 2000 as venture partner with responsibility for assisting portfolio companies with their marketing and development strategies. He previously acted as chief executive officer at web application integration provider Novera Software.
  
• Robert Healy has joined William Blair Capital Partners, a Chicago-based private equity firm, as a managing director. Healy joins the firm from ClearLight Partners where he was a general partner for three years. Healy's primary responsibility at William Blair will be on leading later stage growth equity investments and leveraged buy-outs of middle-market growth companies.
  
• Boston-based venture capital firm, Arcadia Partners, has appointed Jane Swift, former acting governor of the state of Massachusetts, as a special general partner. Arcadia focuses exclusively on the for-profit education and training industry.
  
• David McKenna has rejoined Advent International after three years at rival private equity firm, Bain Capital. McKenna will be responsible for buy-outs and growth equity investments in North America, with an emphasis on industrial technology buy-out transactions. McKenna was with Advent for eight years prior to joining Bain Capital and was responsible for executing buy-out and growth equity investments in the retail, distribution and industrial technology sectors.
  
• Merrill Lynch has replaced six of the seven placement professionals that left the firm in February to join financial services boutique Lazard Frères & Co. Christian Dummet was the first to be recruited to the London office in March, from UK bank Abbey National's private equity unit. Courtney Zierdon, a former high-yield finance professional for Merrill Lynch, will join the firm in New York. Other recent hires to the New-York office include Lisa Chavez, formerly of Pacific Corporate Group and David Whitehouse, who joined Merrill Lynch from Morgan Stanley's structured products division. Ed Ho, who previously worked in Merrill Lynch's fund of funds division and Juan Jimenez, who worked in the origination department, have also recently joined the placement team.
  
• Boston University's Community Technology Fund has promoted Matthew Crowley from senior associate to principal. CTF is a venture capital and technology transfer programme focused on advancing the resources housed at the University. In his new role, Crowley will be responsible for investments in networking, electronics and physical sciences-based technologies.
  
• Greg Bohlen has joined Aurora Funds as chief financial officer. Based in North Carolina, the venture capital firm focuses on early-stage information technology and life science investments in the South East. Bohlen joins from UBS Warburg Investment Banking, where he served for two years as a director of the firm's private equity coverage group.
  
• Telos Venture Partners, a Palo Alto-based early-stage venture capital firm, has appointed Jonathan Barek as principal. His role will focus on helping Telos Venture Partners II, which closed in 2002. He previously worked for Donald Lucas, an independent venture capitalist, and he also spent three years at RWI Group, an early-stage venture capital firm, where he focused on software and semiconductor investments.
  
• John Zeisler, a former general partner at Nokia Venture Partners, has joined Gabriel Venture Partners, a Redwood Shores, California-based venture capital firm that concentrates on investments in information technology, internet, software and communications. His new role is that of venture advisor, in which capacity he will assist with vetting and investing in new deals as well as advising existing portfolio companies.
  
• H&Q Asia Pacific has added Sean C Warren as chief operating officer and managing director. He will be based in the company's Palo Alto office where he will be responsible for every aspect of H&Q's operations, including finance, administration, legal, compliance, public relations, fundraising and investor relations. His most recent position before joining H&Q Asia Pacific was with Robertson Stephens as president and COO of its asset management division.

Asia & Latin America

Appointments

• The Carlyle Group has appointed former Goldman Sachs executive John Kwun as director of its Carlyle Asia Partners. Kwun will be based in Seoul. Kwun was previously executive director and head of North Asia mergers and acquisitions at Goldman Sachs.
  
• US-based private equity firm Darby Overseas Investments has recruited Denis Jungerman as senior advisor with responsibility for the firm's expansion in Brazil, including the launch of the first local currency mezzanine fund in an emerging market country. Prior to joining Darby, Jungerman headed the Bank of America's investment banking division in Brazil. He previously worked at Brazilian private equity fund manager GP Investimentos, at JP Morgan as head of the Brazilian M&A team and as client banker for energy and infrastructure accounts in Merrill Lynch's M&A group.
  
• UBS Japan's chief executive, Mark Chiba, has quit investment banking to set up his own private equity fund. Chiba's new firm is to be called Longreach. Longreach will be an Asian regional fund with an initial focus on Japan and Hong Kong.