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Weekly People Roundup: 28 May 200828/05/2008. 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.
InterWest Partners has hired Drew Hoffmann as an executive-in-residence. Hoffmann will pursue investment opportunities in the life sciences sector with a particular focus on medical devices as well as continuing to act as CEO of InterWest portfolio company Synvascular. Prior to joining InterWest, he was CEO of Inspiration Medical. InterWest Partners is currently investing its $600m ninth fund, IW IX.
US venture capital firm VantagePoint Venture Partners has expanded its cleantech investment team with the appointments of R James Woolsey as venture partner and David Edwards as partner. The firm also promoted Marc van den Berg to managing director. Woolsey has been a senior advisor to VantagePoint since 2006 and former director of CIA. Edwards joins from Morgan Stanley. VantagePoint currently has in excess of $1bn allocated to cleantech investments.
European institutional investor ATP PEP has promoted Nils Johannessen, Noman Mushtaq, Jesper Voss Hansen and Christian Brønden Petersen. Johannessen is based in the Copenhagen office, and has been promoted to director. He was hired as vice president of legal counsel in February 2007. Mushtaq and Voss Hansen are both based in the New York office, and have both been promoted to the position of vice president. Brønden Petersen has also been promoted to vice president, based in the firm's Copenhagen office. ATP PEP commits between €500m to €1bn to private equity funds annually.
One of Sand Hill Capital's four partners, William Del Biaggio III, has resigned for personal reasons. The firm continues to offer debt and equity-backed capital to start-up venture capital firms. Sand Hill currently has four debt funds under management and raised its first equity fund in 2005.
Timberland private equity fund of funds manager Stafford Timberland has hired Tom Goodrich a senior executive from Global Forest Partners, to establish the firm's US office. Stafford has existing offices in London and Sydney. Goodrich was previously with GFP for over four years, most recently in the position of director of client relations and business development. Prior to that, he was a director with a boutique investment bank. Stafford was established in September 2002 by Geoff Norman and Richard Bowley. The firm has $600m under management in separately managed and advisory accounts.
Technology venture capital and private equity firm Battery Ventures has hired Gautam Patel as a partner. Patel will focus on investments in India, alongside investment professional Ramneek Gupta and Battery general partner Mark Sherman. He will initially be based in the firm's Silicon Valley office, preceding his and Gupta's move to Mumbai later this year. Prior to Battery, Patel was the head of Europe and a member of the leadership team at iGATE. Previously, he was the head of Middle East at MphasiS. Prior to that, he founded Indian telecom services firm 3Genesis. Battery has been investing in India since late 2004, focusing on the financial services, media and technology sectors.
Boris Johnson, the mayor of London, has appointed Tim Parker, industrial partner at CVC Capital Partners, as deputy mayor and chief executive of the GLA Group. Johnson will also nominate Parker to be chairman of Transport for London from September. Parker has agreed to take no salary. Parker has decided to step down from all other business interests, except his position as an unpaid non-executive director of Australian media company PBL Media, a commitment which involves two days a year. Previously, Parker was chief executive of CVC portfolio companies the AA and, prior to that, Kwik-Fit. Previously, he was chief executive of Clarks, Kenwood Appliances and Thorn EMI.
London-based venture capital firm Balderton Capital has hired Dharmash Mistry as a partner. In his new role, he will focus on new investment opportunities in the media, retail and consumer goods sectors, and will also work with the firm's existing portfolio companies. For the past eight years, Mistry has been at B2B media group Emap, where he held various positions including managing director of Emap Consumer Media and Emap Performance. Most recently, he was part of the management team that sold Emap's consumer magazine business to H. Bauer for £1.1bn. Balderton recently invested in digital developer Metaversum, and also sold its stake in social networking site Bebo to AOL.
Expansion stage venture firm GGV Capital (formerly Granite Global Ventures) has hired Jeff Richards as a partner and Jia Fen Wang as a venture partner. Jeff Richards will be based in the firm's Silicon Valley office. Most recently he was the vice president of digital content services at Verisign, based in Silicon Valley. Prior to that, he was the CEO of RFID services provider R4 Global Solutions, later acquired by Verisign. Jia Fen Wang will join GGV Capital as a venture partner. Prior to her current position as chairperson of Bright Dairy & Food Company, she served as chairperson and general manager of Shanghai Dairy Group. Earlier this month Granite Global Ventures renamed itself GGV Capital. The firm has offices in Silicon Valley, Shanghai and Singapore.
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