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Weekly People Roundup: 9 July 200809/07/2008. 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.
French private equity firm Eurazeo has appointed Luis Marini-Portugal to the firm's executive board. Marini-Portugal joined Eurazeo's investment team in 1999 and participated in the structuring and oversight of the investments in Eutelsat, Rexel and Terreal. Prior to this, he spent six years at JP Morgan, first in London, where he worked in M&A and leverage finance, then in Paris as an equity analyst. Eurazeo is a majority or key shareholder in companies such as APCOA, B&B Hotels, ELIS, Europcar, Rexel and ANF and the leading shareholder in Accor. The firm is also the major shareholder in Danone.
Later stage growth company investor ABS Capital Partners has promoted Rob Tobin to vice president. He previously held the position of senior associate. Tobin is a member of ABS Capital's Baltimore office, and focuses primarily on investments in the media and communications sectors. He joined ABS Capital in 2005. Tobin has worked with several ABS Capital Portfolio companies such as Advanced Interactive Sciences, Course Advisor, Innovation Interactive, and Vibrant Media. Prior to ABS Capital, he was an investment banker at Friedman Billings Ramsey.
Capital Dynamics, a Zug-headquartered asset management firm with an exclusive focused on private equity, has opened a new office in Munich to expand its activities in the German market. Dr Katharina Lichtner, one of the founders of Capital Dynamics, will lead the German team as managing director. In addition to Dr Lichtner, the German team will comprise senior investment and business development professionals. Last year Capital Dynamics opened an office in Hong Kong. It also has locations in New York, San Francisco, London and Birmingham.
European venture capital firm Wellington Partners has hired LinkedIn co-founder Eric Ly as a venture partner. Ly will work with Wellington portfolio companies, principally in the field of internet services, focusing on social networking and social media applications, product development, technology scalability and viral marketing strategies. He will also be involved in business development and deal origination. Ly was the founding CTO of business networking site LinkedIn. He is currently the CEO of online scheduling application company Presdo, which he founded. Wellington has €800m under management and offices in London, Munich and Zurich. The firm has a focus on the areas of IT, media convergence, cleantech and life science.
European mixed stage venture capital firm Advent Venture Partners has appointed Mike Chalfen as a general partner in the technology sector team. Chalfen will join three other partners in the team: Peter Baines, Frédéric Court and Martin McNair. The firm said that the latest hire would complete 'the process of generational change' in the technology team and that it was planning to further expand the team later this year. Chalfen previously was a partner at Apax Partners, focusing on the digital media, software and services sectors in Europe and Israel. He left in 2006, when Apax decided to move away from venture. Since then he has been an active private investor.
CVC Capital Partners has established an office in Beijing, to be headed by Zhu Wei, who has joined the firm as a managing director. Zhu joins from Goldman Sachs where he was a managing director of the China investment banking team and headed the investment banking coverage in Shanghai. He will add to CVC's senior team for China, which includes Francis Leung, Alvin Lam and William Ho. CVC manages approximately $46bn in private equity funds. CVC recently closed its latest buy-out fund for Asia, CVC Capital Partners Asia Pacific III, on $4.1bn. To date the fund is 20.7 per cent committed.
NGP Energy Capital Management has added Dr Anas F Alhajji, an economist specialising in the energy sector, as chief economist in its investment team. Dr Alhajji will lead the firm's macro-analysis of the oil, natural gas and related markets. Dr Alhajji has been an economics professor for the past 12 years, working at the University of Oklahoma, the Colorado School of Mines and, most recently, Ohio Northern University. He serves on the boards of several academic journals and publications. NGP Energy is a $9.3bn firm that invests across all sectors of the energy industry.
US private equity firm Castle Creek Capital has appointed J Mikesell Thomas as a principal. Thomas was most recently the president and CEO of the Federal Home Loan Bank of Chicago. He began his banking career at The First National Bank of Chicago, where he spent 21 years in a variety of roles including treasurer, CFO, co-head of merchant banking and co-head of corporate and institutional banking. He also spent six years at Lazard Freres & Co. Castle Creek specialises in investments in the financial services industry.
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