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Weekly People Roundup: 1 October 200801/10/2008. 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.
Venture capital firm Darwin Ventures has hired Robert A Young and Ken Hausman as partners and Sunil Kurkure as principal. Young and Hausman were most recently managing directors at Mirador Capital where Kurkure was a venture partner. Darwin Ventures offers institutional investors, primarily educational endowments and foundations, access to venture capital deals.
Media, entertainment and communications-focused private equity firm Providence Equity Partners has hired Thomas Gahan as president of the firm's newly established Capital Markets Group. He will be based in the firm's New York office. The Capital Markets Group invests in the debt of media, entertainment, communications and information companies. Gahan was most recently CEO of Deutsche Bank Securities and head of corporate and investment banking in the Americas. He was also the head of capital markets at Deutsche Bank and a member of the global banking executive committee and the global markets executive committee. Providence manages funds with approximately $22bn in equity commitments.
Investment bank Evercore Partners has appointed Ray E Newton IIIas senior managing director in its private equity group, Evercore Capital Partners. Newton most recently was a senior managing director at private equity firm Perseus and will serve on the investment committee of ECP alongside James R Matthews, Neeraj Mital and Kathleen Reiland. Prior to Perseus, Newton was a general partner at J. H. Whitney & Co.
UK mid-market private equity firm Phoenix Equity Partners has appointed Clarissa Beresford as an investment manager. She joins Phoenix from the investment banking division at JP Morgan, where she advised on a number of corporate transactions across sectors including industrials, technology, healthcare and consumer. Phoenix focuses on the UK mid market, and businesses valued at up to £200m.
Venture capital firm New Enterprise Associates has made several promotions within the firm. Harry Weller was named general partner, Rohini Chakravarthy and Jon Sakoda were promoted to partner; and Ali Behbahani was promoted to principal. Weller joined NEA in 2002. He focuses on technology and renewable energy investments, as well as NEA's activities in China. Previously, he was a partner at FBR Technology Venture Partners. He serves on the board of the Mid-Atlantic Venture Association and co-founded the Young Mid-Atlantic Venture Association.
Bahrain-headquartered investment firm Arcapita Bank has appointed John O'Donohue to join the firm's London office as a director within Arcapita Ventures. O'Donohue joins Arcapita from his position as a managing director of Motorola Ventures. Arcapita operates across four lines of business: corporate investment, real estate investment, asset-based investment and venture capital. Arcapita's mission is to provide innovative and distinctive investment opportunities that generate superior risk adjusted returns while adhering to Islamic principles.
American Capital has expanded the firm's operations in Asia with the establishment of the firm's first Asian office, in Hong Kong. The initial focus of the expansion will be to identify and support opportunities throughout Asia for its existing portfolio companies in the US and Europe and to build relationships with local institutional investors, according to the firm. The Hong Kong office will be led by David Steinglass, a senior investment professional that joined American Capital in 1997. In his new role, he will be responsible for working closely with the company's investment teams worldwide and for capitalraising activities in Asia.
CVC Capital Partners has formed a US advisory board. Former Hilton Hotels Corporation CEO and co-chairman Stephen F Bollenbach, former vice chairman of Burberry Rose Marie Bravo and former chairman of the board of Saks Holdings R Brad Martin have become the first three advisory board members. The advisory board will help develop investment opportunities in the US and advise portfolio companies.
Media and communications-focused private equity firm Quadrangle Group has opened a new office in Hong Kong. Edward Sippel, a managing principal of Quadrangle who has been based in New York, will head the office. Sippel joined Quadrangle in 2007. Prior to that, he was a managing director and partner at TVG Capital Partners, a Hong Kong-based private equity firm focused exclusively on investments in the telecom, media and technology sectors throughout Asia. Before joining TVG at inception, Sippel was with Hong Kong private equity firm The Asian Infrastructure Fund.
Australian investment firm AMP Capital Investors has appointed Xiao Wei as co-head, infrastructure Asia, based in Beijing. Xiao will work alongside Mumbai-based Anoop Seth, co-head, infrastructure Asia, to source infrastructure investment opportunities for the new wholesale AMP Capital Asian Giants Infrastructure Fund, according to the firm. The fund focuses on infrastructure projects in India and China. Xiao was previously at power development operating company China Country Manager of AES, CEO of AES China Generating Company and China country head of Meiya Power. AMP Capital manages AUS$3.5bn in infrastructure investments in Australia, New Zealand, Asia and Europe.
Altius Associates has appointed Jay Yoder as a partner and head of real assets. Yoder will be based in the firm's Richmond, Virginia, office. He will specialise in real assets for Altius and develop a fund of funds focused on energy, timber and infrastructure. He was previously a co-founder of US firm Tuckerbrook Alternative Investments. Altius currently manages over $17bn in private equity funds for clients based across Europe, North America and Australia. The firm has a team of 28 professionals based in London and Richmond.
The European Private Equity and Venture Capital Association has appointed Ross Butleras head of it communications team. As a private equity journalist Butler has written on the key issues facing the industry for titles including Real Deals, The Spectator, The Corporate Financier, Legal Business, IFR and The Grocer. EVCA's role includes representing the interests of the industry to regulators and standard setters, developing professional standards and providing industry research, professional development and forums in addition to facilitating interaction between its members and industry participants.
UK lower mid-market private equity firm Lyceum Capital has hired four new executives, including Sovereign Capital's Simon Hitchcock who will join Lyceum as a partner in March 2009. Hitchcock has worked at Sovereign since 2002, most recently as a director. New associate partner Ian Williams has joined Lyceum from Arbuthnot Securities, where he was a director of corporate finance. His experience includes IPOs and public-to-private transactions in the support services, healthcare, transport and technology sectors.
Duncan Green and Humphrey Baker are Lyceum's new analysts. Green previously advised on commercial due diligence and corporate strategy engagements at PricewaterhouseCoopers Strategy. Green was also founder and managing director of Housing Abroad, a university start-up which developed into a pan-European relocation agency providing residential accommodation in over 30 European cities. Baker previously was a manager within Ernst & Young's Performance Improvement practice, advising financial services companies.
Consumer-focused private equity firm VMG Partners has promoted Kara Cissell-Roell to managing director. Before helping launch VMG in 2005, Roell was a principal at TSG Consumer Partners, where she was involved in the sourcing, due diligence, financing, execution and exit of numerous portfolio companies. Prior to that, she was with Arena Capital Partners. VMG Partners has $325m of committed equity capital and is headquartered in San Francisco and Los Angeles.
Apax Partners in France has appointed Bernard Bourigeaud, the founder and former chairman and CEO of Atos Origin, as a senior advisor. In his new role, he will contribute to the development of Apax's portfolio of companies in Europe. Bourigeaud currently serves as chairman of BJB Consulting, a CEO-to-CEO consultancy. Previously, he was chairman and CEO of Atos Origin. In a separate statement, Apax has announced that its Paris office has hired two new senior associates. Sébastien Mazzuri joins the healthcare team, while Thomas Simon joins the retail and consumer team.
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