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People: August 2003

CapMan hires Yrjo Wichmann, Harrison Miller returns to Summit Partners and Paul Lattanzio heads up new group at Bear Stearns …

Europe

Appointments

• Christian Dyvig has joined Nordic Capital as a partner. Dyvig will be responsible for the firm's Danish operations. He joins Nordic Capital after more than ten years as a member of the mergers and acquisitions unit at Morgan Stanley, with responsibility for Nordic, and more recently German activities. Prior to Morgan Stanley Dyvig worked at Danish law firm Kromann Reumert.
  
  
• Nordic private equity firm, CapMan, has strengthened its life sciences investment team with the appointment of Yrjo Wichmann as investment director. Wichmann has over ten years' experience in the Finnish life sciences sector. Wichmann joins CapMan from FibroGen Europe where he served as chief financial officer.
  
  
• Pragma Capital has added two senior people to its management team. Michel Chabanel joins as the senior investment partner from the Paris office of Royal Bank of Scotland, while Pascal Gagna has joined as chief financial officer and was previously in the same position at Fonds Partenaires, a private equity subsidiary of Lazard in France.
  
  
• Lehman Brothers has hired Jon MacIntosh as a managing director and principal in its European mezzanine investing team within the private equity division. MacIntosh joins from DB Capital Partners and previously spent four years at Morgan Grenfell Private Equity.
  
  
• Renata Milczarek has joined Russell, formerly Frank Russell, as a director. She will report directly to Helen Steers, head of the European private equity team. Milczarek joins from CDP Capital, the private equity subsidiary of Caisse de depot et placement du Québec, where she worked from 1997. Based in its Paris office, she was responsible for managing a portfolio of European private equity funds.

North America

Departures

• James Hearty, executive director of the Massachusetts Pension Reserve Investment Management Board, has left the pension plan. Treasurer Dan Cahill is said to be frustrated by Hearty's opposition to disclosing the fund's private equity performance data. The pension plan has been ordered to publish the data by the state's attorney general.

Appointments

• Advent International has announced the appointment of Beverly Berman as a partner. Berman will be responsible for investor relations and fund marketing activities in North America. Berman joins Advent from CP Eaton & Associates, an independent placement agent where she was partner with primary responsibility for origination, screening and due diligence of alternative assets including private equity, real estate and hedge funds.
  
  
• Standard Life Investments is continuing its expansion into the US private equity market with the recruitment of John Guinee as investment director for North America. Guinee will be responsible for building a $200m portfolio of US private equity interests. He joins Standard Life from State Street, where he served as vice president for business development and strategy.
  
  
• US-based Spinel Capital has appointed Dee Osborne and George Williams as executive advisors to the firm. Osborne is president of Crest Invest Company, a private company that invests in a wide range of business ventures. Williams is managing partner and chief executive officer of Williams Partners, a boutique investment firm that specialises in placing capital in international direct private equity.
  
  
• Intersouth Partners has promoted Donald Rainey to partner. Rainey has been a venture partner with the firm for the last three years, has led three investments and serves on the boards of several companies. He will focus largely on technology investments in the Washington, DC area.
  
  
• Harrison Miller is to return to US-based Summit Partners as general partner of the Summit Accelerator Fund, the firm's venture capital arm. Miller was previously an associate of the firm from 1988 to 1990. He will be responsible for investing in rapidly growing, profitable companies with capital needs of between $2m and $10m.
  
  
• Grotech Capital Group has announced the appointment of Joel Radtke as vice president, focused on investments in the healthcare services and medical devices industries. Radtke joins Grotech from Credit Suisse First Boston (CSFB) where he served as an associate in the firm's healthcare group.
  
  
• Tim Eichenlaub has joined Prometheus Partners as a managing director. Eichenlaub previously served as managing director for GE Commercial Finance. There he oversaw a team that covered private equity firms and provided equity and senior and subordinated debt for middle-market buy-outs.
  
  
• Paul Lattanzio will lead a new group at Bear Stearns Merchant Banking. The new group will focus on identifying middle-market private equity investment opportunities. Lattanzio previously served as managing director of TD Capital, the merchant banking division of the Toronto Dominion Bank. Prior to that he was a co-founder of NMS Capital Management, a $600m private equity fund.
  
  
• Thayer Capital Partners has named Scott Rued as the latest addition to its team. He joins as a managing partner. Rued previously served as chief executive officer of Hidden Creek Industries, a company that he co-founded. He will focus on deals in the manufacturing industry, including logistics, automotive manufacturing and industrial manufacturing.
  
  
• US Venture Partners has promoted Timothy J Connors to general partner. Connors joined the firm as an associate in 2001 and concentrates on enterprise software and semiconductor companies, with a primary focus on seed and early-stage companies. He previously spent three years at Sequoia Capital and prior to that, seven years in engineering, marketing, manufacturing and sales roles at C-Cube and Tandem Computers.
  
  
• Ron Elwell has joined US-based venture firm Bessemer Venture Partners as an operating partner. Mr Elwell was formerly the chief executive officer of Octave Communications, a Bessemer portfolio company that was acquired by Voyant Technologies earlier in 2003. Prior to joining Octave he was president of the enterprise telephony group at Lernout & Hauspie.
  
  
• Mayfield, a US-based venture capital firm, has promoted Peter Levine to general manager. Levine joined Mayfield as a venture partner in 2002. In his new role he will continue to source investment opportunities in the storage, infrastructure and enterprise software sectors and provide management assistance to Mayfield portfolio companies.
  
  
• Texas-based Austin Ventures has made one promotion and two new additions to its team. Craig Milius moves from senior associate to principal, where he will focus on business services and technology-enabled outsourcing companies. John Durrett and Matt Bowman join the firm as associates. Durrett will focus on the services sector. He previously worked for Hicks Muse Tate & Furst, where he supported new deal teams and portfolio company management teams in making strategic and operational decisions. Bowman was formerly an associate at MHT Partners in Dallas and will now focus on the firm's hardware and services investments.
  
  
• Ted Mocarski has joined Key Venture Partners as a managing director. His most recent position was with AlphaCap Ventures, where he served as managing director. Prior to that he was a founding partner of Nautic Partners.