PRINT THIS PAGE Weekly People Roundup: 14 November 200714/11/2007. Source: AltAssets. 
All the week's most important people stories from across the globe. Essential reading for those who need to keep up-to-date with the private equity industry's key staff moves. Former US vice president and climate change campaigner Al Gore has been named a partner at venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. Gore will be responsible for helping find and fund businesses with the potential to help solve the current climate crisis. The appointment is part of a global collaboration agreement between KPCB and sustainability investment and research firm Generation Investment Management, which is chaired by Gore. Under the agreement, KPCB partner John Doerr will join Generation's advisory board, and KPCB will co-locate their European operations at Generation's offices in London.
Healthcare investment venture capital firm Essex Woodlands Health Ventures has appointed Lisa Ricciardi as an adjunct partner to provide marketing and commercialisation expertise to the business's portfolio companies, operating from the New York office. Ricciardi is the former senior vice president of licencing and development with drugs maker Pfizer. She recently led the overall licencing and negotiations of complex, multi-national, multi-year deals with global research-based pharmaceutical firms in North America, Japan and Europe.
US early stage venture capital firm Charles River Ventures has brought in Jim Scheinman as an entrepreneur-in-residence. Scheinman will work with CRV to uncover new investments in the consumer internet, social networking and social media sectors, while working with the firm's portfolio companies and evaluating opportunities for his next start-up venture. Scheinman comes to CRV from social networking website Bebo where he was a co-founder, and served as vice president of business development and sales. Prior to Bebo, Scheinman was one of the first employees and head of business development and sales at the first social networking site, Friendster. Prior to his internet career, Scheinman practiced corporate and intellectual property law at a leading Silicon Valley law firm. He went on to serve as senior vice president of business development at NBC Internet.
Damon Buffini, the current managing partner at Permira, has been named chairman of the European-based buy-out group. Buffini will remain chairman of the investment committee. Permira has also announced the appointment of new co-managing partners, Kurt Björklund, the head of Permira's Stockholm office and Tom Lister, the head of the New York office, to strengthen its management team. Buffini, alongside the existing senior management team and the new co-managing partners, will continue to be responsible for Permira's overall strategy, funding and new business development. Björklund and Lister will run the executive committee, which will manage Permira's private equity business.
3i has appointed media expert Rosalyn Wilton, currently chairman of Ipreo, the newly formed merger between Hemscott and US-based i-Deal, as a senior adviser. Wilton will work closely with 3i's media sector team and help identify investment opportunities in the business information space, with a focus on online businesses.Wilton spent eight years at Hemscott, having joined as CEO in 1999. Previously she was managing director of Reuters Transaction Services and a member of the Reuters Executive Committee. Before Reuters, she spent over 15 years in the financial markets in senior positions in the money, fixed income and derivatives areas. Wilton also held non-executive positions at LIFFE, Scottish Widows' Fund and Life Assurance Society and is currently a non-executive director of Optos.
UK mid-market buy-out firm Gresham Private Equity has established a dedicated energy and environmental team, headed by partners Andy Marsh and Christian Bruning. The new team will seek to take advantage of sustained high energy prices, the international reach of UK energy firms and the trend towards outsourcing operational requirements to third parties. It will also invest in firms with expertise in opening up previously uneconomic oil and gas reserves.
Early stage venture capital firm BlueRun Ventures has appointed William Qu and Mike Ding as investment directors. Qu, based in Beijing, and Ding, based in Shanghai, will focus on new media, wireless and consumer services investment opportunities in China. Prior to BlueRun, Qu worked as the director of investment at Capinfo, a Hong Kong-listed IT services company, where he was responsible for new venture investments and managing portfolio companies. He also co-founded Beijing Jiajing Weiye Technologies and serves as a director on its board. Qu is also one of the co-founders of China TMT association, a non-profit organisation providing a communication platform for entrepreneurs and investors. Ding previously worked for Nokia's Emerging Business Unit as director for new business development and strategic investments, and also headed Nokia's China operations of Widsets. Previously he was a vice president of iDTech Ventures and investment manager of Intel Capital, where he began his venture career.
Dutch private equity investor AlpInvest Partners has appointed Chris Perriello and Michael Hacker to its New York-based secondary investments team. Earlier this year, Gunter Waldner joined the Amsterdam-based secondary investments team. Perriello joined as a principal. Previously, he was a principal on the primary fund investment team of Paul Capital Partners. Prior to that, Perriello worked for INVESCO Private Capital, where he completed primary fund investments, secondary transactions and direct investments. Before INVESCO Private Capital, he was an equity analyst at AMVESCAP. Hacker is an investment manager at AlpInvest. Previously, he was an associate director in the private equity secondary advisory group of UBS Investment Bank. Earlier on in his career he worked in the Leveraged Finance Group at CIBC World Markets and the Fixed Income Department at JPMorgan. Waldner is as a principal at AlpInvest. Previously, he was an executive director in Lehman Brothers Europe's Investment Banking division.
New York-based private equity firm Lightyear Capital has appointed John F Shettle, Jr as a full-time senior advisor. Shettle will work on deal sourcing for Lightyear and will provide Lightyear's portfolio companies with operations advice. Shettle joins Lightyear from The Schinnerer Group where as president and CEO he was responsible for running two underwriting management insurance organisations in North America: Victor O Schinnerer & Company and ENCON Group.
Central European buy-out firm Mid Europa Partners, has promoted Robert Knorr, Zbigniew Rekusz and Matthew Strassberg as partners. Knorr joined Mid Europa in 1999 and has worked on a number of investments including Serbia Broadband, Calucem and Telemach. Prior to joining Mid Europa, he worked at Bankers Trust in London and Deutsche Bank in Milan. Rekusz joined Mid Europa in 2002 and heads its Warsaw office; he has worked on a number of transactions including Wheelabrator, Invitel and Karneval. Prior to joining Mid Europa, Zbigniew worked at Barings Communications Equity and UNP Holdings. Strassberg joined Mid Europa in 2002 and is based in London, he has been involved in various investments including Luxmed/Medycyna Rodzinna, Bite, Aster and Invitel. Prior to joining Mid Europa, Matthew worked in investment banking at Merrill Lynch and JP Morgan and in private equity.
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