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People: July 2003

Susan Flynn joins Coller Capital, Thayer Capital loses chief operating officer and Dawnay Day boosts its exposure to private equity…

Europe & Israel

Departures

• Reid Perper has left Credit Suisse First Boston (CSFB) where he was managing director in the bank's European private equity group. Perper was based in London and joined CSFB in November 2000 when it first merged with Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette (DLJ). He was previously a managing director of DLJ Merchant Banking Partners.
  
• Bruno Roger has resigned as chairman of Eurazeo's supervisory board and will be replaced by Michel David-Weill, former chairman of Lazard France. Roger is the current chairman of Lazard's French operations and has resigned from his position at Eurazeo in order to dedicate more time to this position.

Appointments

• UK secondaries specialist Coller Capital has recruited former CEO of UK General Motors Asset Management Susan Flynn as investment director. Flynn will be responsible for transaction origination and structuring. Flynn previously served as chief investment officer at General Motors Pension UK Funds and as associate director in the bioscience department of Rothschild Asset Management. She has also sat on a number of private equity advisory boards including Alchemy Partners, Apax Partners, BC Partners and Nordic Capital.
  
• Hermes, the UK-based principal investment manager of the pension schemes of British Telecom and the British Post Office, has recruited Shane Feeney as investment director for the firm's private equity direct investment team. Feeney joins Hermes from Deutsche Bank's Morgan Grenfell Private Equity. He will work alongside Rod Selkirk, a former managing director at European mid-market buy-out firm Bridgepoint.
  
• UK corporate finance boutique, Dawnay Day, is to boost its exposure to private equity with the launch of a new principal investments unit. The firm has recruited Luke Bridgeman from Morgan Grenfell Private to assist with the launch. Dawnay Day has also recruited Mark Mathias as managing director of its newly founded structured investments business. Mathias joins the firm from Legal & General.
  
• Andrew Williams has joined CDC Capital Partners, the UK government-backed private equity firm that specialises in investing in developing economies, as a non-executive director. Williams is a director of Schroders Ventures International Investment Trust and chief executive of Schroder Ventures Limited.
  
• Techno Venture Management, a German-US venture capital firm, has announced the promotion of two of its principals to partner level. David Poltrack and Dr Axel Polack become general partner and venture partner respectively. David Poltrack joined TVM in Boston in 2000 from PricewaterhouseCoopers. He is a member of the corporate finance team, working closely with the life science and IT teams on TVM's portfolio companies. Axel Polack is a member of the life sciences team in Munich, working on assessing new deal opportunities and the support of portfolio companies. He joined TVM in 2000 from Innovative Technologies Neuherbery, where he had been general manager.
  
• Jerusalem Venture Partners, an international venture firm, has appointed two new venture partners to strengthen its expertise in the software sector. Alex Ott joins from Siebel Systems and Haim Kopans joins from Precise Software Solutions. JVP focuses on early-stage investing in enterprise software and networking, semiconductors and components, and communication and mobile infrastructure sectors.
  
• Dr Allan Marchington and Dr Raj Parekh have joined Abingworth, the UK-based biotech venture firm, as entrepreneurs in residence based in London. Dr Marchington joins from Millennium Pharmaceuticals in the US, where he was senior vice president for productivity. Previously he had worked at Cambridge Discovery Chemistry in the UK, where he was co-founder and chief executive, and Pfizer Central Research. Dr Parekh co-founded Oxford GlycoSciences in 1988 and was chief scientific officer and senior vice president of research. He was also instrumental in the flotation of the company in 1998 and its recent merger with Celltech.
  
• European private equity house Cinven has appointed two new investment executives. Thierry Celestin has joined the firm's Paris office while Bruno Schick will be based in Frankfurt. Celestin previously worked in the UK corporate finance division at Lazard, where he focused on the media sector. Schick was previously the CEO of Surplex, a provider of asset recovery solutions based in Germany, which he co-founded in 1999.

North America

Departures

• Thayer Capital's chief operating officer, Rick Rickertsen, has resigned from his position but will remain senior advisor to the firm. Rickertsen joined Thayer in 1994 and was appointed COO in 1999. While at the firm he led two rounds of fundraising totalling $1.24bn. He previously served as general partner at Hancock Park Associates and prior to that as an associate at Brentwood Associates.

Appointments

• Newbury Ventures, a US-based venture firm with a European outpost, has recruited Trevor Kienzle as general partner. Kienzle joins the firm from GE Equity, the venture capital arm of the General Electric Company, where he was industry leader and co-head of the firm's software team. At GE Equity Kienzle was responsible for venture investments in the information security, wireless data, systems management, speech technologies and IT services sectors.
  
• Pacific Corporate Group (PCG), the US asset management firm, has recruited F Scott Tuck as president. Tuck will report to the firm's founder and chairman Christopher Bower, and will be responsible for new business initiatives, business development and management of the firm. Tuck previously served as chairman and chief executive officer of Montgomery Asset Management, which managed over $12bn in assets for institutional and mutual fund clients both domestically and offshore.
  
• Michael Doyle has joined US-based JLL Partners as senior vice president. He will be responsible for leading the firm's efforts in the distressed market. Doyle joins JLL from Nomura Holding America, where was managing director with responsibility for the firm's proprietary distressed and special situations high-yield investing portfolio. He was previously a manager in the financial advisory services group at PricewaterhouseCoopers.
  
• The Blackstone Group has recruited Thomas Middleton as senior managing director in the firm's mergers and acquisitions advisory group. Middleton joins Blackstone from Merrill Lynch where he served as vice chairman of investment banking until 2002. Prior to joining Merrill Lynch, he was a member of the M&A group at Salomon Brothers and also held a similar role at Kidder Peabody.
  
• US Rustic Canyon Partners has announced the recruitment of Jon Staenberg as partner. Staenberg will be responsible for sourcing investment opportunities in the Pacific Northwest region in addition to the firm's traditional focus on Southern California-based companies.
  
• Dr Bernice Welles is the latest addition to the team at MPM Capital, the US-based life sciences investor. She joins as a venture partner in the firm's MPM BioVentures group. Welles will focus on evaluating potential investments with an emphasis on product candidates in discovery and development as well as working closely with MPM portfolio companies to build their pipelines. Welles joins MPM from Genentech where she was vice president of product development.
  
• Diamondhead Ventures has recruited Scott Russell as general partner. Russell will be responsible for identifying opportunities for commercialising infrastructure technologies that originate from research universities and corporations. Russell joins Diamondhead Ventures from Mobius Venture Capital where he was founding partner and managing director.
  
• Thayer Capital has announced the appointment of Scott Rued as a managing partner. Prior to joining Thayer, Rued was co-founder, president and CEO of Hidden Creek Industries, a partnership with Onex Corporation. He was previously executive vice president and CFO of Xerxes Corporation and Affiliates.
  
• Pacific Venture Partners, a US-based venture capital firm focusing on microelectronics and IT in Asia and the US, has appointed Christopher Chu as partner. Chu joins the firm from Crescendo Ventures, where he was a principal with responsibility for communications investments. He previously served as an associate at Worldview Technology Partners where he focused on the networking and internet infrastructure market.
  
• John Abraham, a former venture partner at Battery Ventures, has been named as the latest member of the team at Kodiak Venture Partners, a US-based seed and early-stage venture firm focused on communications, semiconductors and software companies. He joins the firm as a venture partner. His responsibility at Kodiak will be to identify new investments in all areas of interest for the firm.
  
• Michael Sweeney has been promoted from venture partner to general partner at InterWest Partners, a US-based venture firm that invests in information technology and medical technology. Sweeney joined InterWest in 1998 as an entrepreneur-in-residence and served as a venture partner from January 2001.
  
• New York-based Sprout Group has promoted principal Vijay Lathi to partner. Lathi joined the venture capital firm in January 1998 from Robertson Stephens, where he served as an analyst in the firm's healthcare venture capital group. Sprout Group is focused on investments in the communications, software and healthcare technology industries.
  
• Tom Vander Schaaf has joined New Jersey-based Edison Venture Fund as manager of analysis. Vander Schaaf will lead due diligence teams comprising operational specialists and investment professionals. He was previously at MMC Capital Communications and Information Fund. He also served as an associate at CIBC Capital Partners and as an investment banker at CIBC Oppenheimer.