Private Markets Profile: Inside the deal

Richard runs the Private Markets portfolio at Railpen. The Private Markets team has the remit and responsibility to invest across high-risk illiquid strategies through a variety of investment structures (funds, co-investments, secondaries, directs), focussed primarily on equity strategies. Having joined Railpen in 2007, Richard has evolved and implemented Railpen’s current approach to private market strategies promoting the principles of flexibility, control and cost. Earlier in his tenure at Railpen, Richard was responsible for the commodities pooled fund. Richard started his career in 2003 as a strategy consultant serving the Private Markets industry. He is a guest lecturer on the Private Equity executive education programme at University of Oxford’s Said Business School.

Sir Nicholas Lyons has worked in the City of London for over 40 years, in investment banking
since 2003, on the boards of a large number of insurance and asset management
companies. Currently Chair at Phoenix Group, and a Non-Executive Director of Convex
Group Limited. He is a founding member of the Capital Markets Industry Taskforce. As Lord
Mayor of London from November 2022 to November 2023 he was the architect of the
Mansion House Compact. He was knighted in the King’s Birthday Honours in 2024 for
services to the financial sector, the growth economy and financial literacy.

Julia Diez is Head of UK Productive Assets at Railpen and focuses on investment into UK VC and later stage disruptive growth companies as well as Railpen’s broader Uk investment strategy. Julia joined Railpen in April 2017 in the Fundamental Equities team initially managing a large cap fundamental growth equity portfolio as well as a crossover Private/Public portfolio.

Julia has over 20 years of finance experience and prior to Railpen was a sell side research analyst covering Transportation, Logistics and Infrastructure at Goldman Sachs, RBS and HSBC. 

Julia is a Fellow Chartered Accountant, qualifying with Deloitte in 2006, holds an MBA from Columbia Business School and was awarded the Feldberg Fellowship and has a BSc in Physical Sciences from University College London.

Julia serves as a director on the boards of Gousto and Transfermate Payments.

Heather joined Scottish Widows Investment Office in February 2024. As Head of Portfolio
Management & Implementation, Heather is responsible for the management of £170bn
of policyholder funds and the selection, governance, and oversight of asset managers.
Heather was previously Head of Global Asset Allocation at Aberdeen, with more than a
decade spent as a multi-asset manager focused on institutional mandates including
bespoke solutions. Prior to her time spent in multi-asset, Heather was fixed income
credit analyst at SWIP and an equity analyst at Baillie Gifford where she started her
career.

Sir Nicholas Lyons has worked in the City of London for over 40 years, in investment banking
since 2003, on the boards of a large number of insurance and asset management
companies. Currently Chair at Phoenix Group, and a Non-Executive Director of Convex
Group Limited. He is a founding member of the Capital Markets Industry Taskforce. As Lord
Mayor of London from November 2022 to November 2023 he was the architect of the
Mansion House Compact. He was knighted in the King’s Birthday Honours in 2024 for
services to the financial sector, the growth economy and financial literacy.

Ian Connatty is the first Managing Partner for BBB Patient Capital Advisory Services, leading its regulated investment advisory and fundraising activities. As Managing Partner, Ian will also serve on the BBB Patient Capital Advisory Services Board, contributing to the Partnership’s governance and strategic oversight. He was previously the British Business Bank’s Deputy Chief Investment Officer. He brings with him a wealth of experience in direct, co-investment and venture capital fund investing having worked for British Business Bank and its forerunner organisations since 2009. Ian joined British Patient Capital when it launched in 2018 where he was Managing Director of the Funds business until 2021. After this he was appointed Managing Director, Direct and Co-investment, where he established the £425m Future Fund: Breakthrough programme. He previously worked in corporate finance at technology company Infinity SDC and in financial modelling at the Royal Bank of Scotland.

Alice is a Senior Investment Director in the Private Markets Group at USS Investment Management. She joined USS in 2009, and is currently responsible for sourcing, evaluation and execution of investments in Private Credit and Alternative Income.  She is an experienced deal professional and funds allocator.

Prior to USS, Alice worked as an investment analyst in fund of hedge funds.  

Alice received a Bachelor of Science degree in Economics from the London School of Economics & Political Science.

Moritz Zander, CFA is Head of Investments at New Reinsurance Company ltd. Former experience includes Head of Origination, Capital Partners at NewRe, VP, Capital Solutions EMEA and Senior Credit Underwriter at Swiss Re, and Economist at MIGA, World Bank Group. He holds a Masters degree in International Policy Studies from Stanford University and a licence degree (Bachelor of Arts) from the University of Geneva.

Antony is a Managing Director on the Secondary Investment team based in the London office, where he leads the firm’s global sourcing and origination efforts.  He is a member of the Investment Committee and is active in sourcing, conducting due diligence and leading the execution of secondary investments.  Antony also serves on a number of European Private Equity fund advisory boards. 

Prior to joining Hamilton Lane, Antony worked at a leading intermediary in the secondary market where he focused on all aspects of the secondary market including sourcing, coordinating and execution of transactions on behalf of institutional investors. 

Antony received a Bachelor of Honours degree in Finance from the Asper School of Business at the University of Manitoba.

Eamon Ray is the Head of Private Credit and Alternative Income at USS. He is responsible for managing USS’s activities across private credit, alternative income and matching asset classes, including a team of 20 personnel and £7.8bn of assets under management.

Eamon has led the team’s sourcing, investment and asset management activities across a wide variety of sectors including social housing, equity release mortgages and property development finance.

He holds multiple Board positions including at Registered Providers in the social housing space as well as at specialty finance businesses.

Prior to joining USS, Eamon worked at GE Capital and Deloitte. He is a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of England and Wales, and is a CFA Charterholder.

James is a Workplace Investment Director looking after FutureWise Target Dated Fund Strategy and a number of key strategic IO clients since February 2023. He comes with 13 years DC Investment industry experience from Aon, where he was Head of DC Investments for 8 Years and is qualified as a Regulated Financial Planner, with a specialism in DC investment strategy design, sustainability, less liquid asset integration and provider market knowledge. His responsibilities included working on the Bank of England’s Productive Working Finance Group, governing the Aon DC Product (including the Aon Master Trust), reviewing the investment and bundled proposition of pension providers and advising Employers and Trusts on their workplace investment strategy.

Vivian joined Fidelity in 2022 as a portfolio manager for private markets. Prior to Fidelity, she held various roles at Cambridge Associates, Barings, M&G Investments, and China International Capital Corporation. Vivian holds an MBA from London Business School and a BA from Peking University.

Steven serves on the Investment Committee and is responsible for developing and supporting the firm’s business development initiatives. With over 25 years of global timberland experience, Steven has broad experience developing timberland investment strategies, acquiring timberland, and managing portfolios. Prior to joining RMS, Steven was Managing Director, Global Strategies at Campbell Global, playing a key role in the successful launch of their first global timberland fund.  Prior to that he held positions at RMS, Rayonier, James W. Sewall Company, and Jaakko Pöyry Consulting.  Steven received his M.S. in forest resources from the University of Georgia and a B.S. in forest resources and conservation from the University of Florida.

Julius spent his executive career in the insurance and asset management industries. More recently he has held a series of non executive and advisory roles on trustee boards, for insurance companies and fintechs, including NEST, NatWest, Heineken, Prudential, Royal London, decisionsdecisions, Guiide and most recently for Cushon where he has been responsible for the design of their award winning default fund strategy. He has consulted for BlackRock, Capita and USS.

Greta is leading the expansion of Aviva Investors’ capability in direct natural capital and nature-based investing and the resulting interaction with voluntary carbon markets. As co-Portfolio Manager on the recently launched Private Markets Carbon Removal Fund, she is responsible for origination and financial and impact analyses of new opportunities. Prior to joining Aviva Investors, Greta worked on project financing renewables and impact ventures in emerging markets and strategy consulting. She holds Natural Resources Engineering and Financial Economics degrees from the University of Canterbury in New Zealand. Her engineering degree focused on renewable energy, water engineering, and nature-based solutions.

Assia Belkahia joined Antin in 2017 and is based in London. She has extensive experience in the UK infrastructure sector, holding board seats for CityFibre, the UK’s third largest full fibre network; UK-based Wildstone, Europe’s largest owner of outdoor media infrastructure; as well as Aquavista, UK’s largest marina infrastructure provider.

She also holds board seats on Hippocrates, the leading Italian independent pharmacy platform and Consilium Safety, a global leader in safety management infrastructure. Furthermore, Assia led the feasibility phase, preparation and launch of Antin’s NextGen infrastructure strategy.

Prior to Antin, she was with CPP Investments, focusing on core infrastructure. Assia started her career in M&A at Rothschild and holds an MSc in Business from ESSEC Business School.

Mr. Twomey joined Guggenheim in 2014 as an Analyst focusing on European Corporate Credit. Prior to joining Guggenheim, he spent four years at PwC working in the Banking, Capital Markets, and Insurance department. Mr. Twomey holds a B.Comm in Commerce & French from University College Dublin and a Master’s in Accounting from the Smurfit Business School. He qualified as a Chartered Accountant and has earned the right to use the Chartered Financial Analyst® designation and is a member of the CFA Institute.

Mike has spent over 35 years managing and investing for public, private and, charity sector pension schemes.  He is an Accredited Professional Trustee at Pi Partnership and the longstanding independent Chair of Trustees of the Institute of Cancer Research Pension Scheme. Mike is also performing a number of complementary non-executive, advisory and consulting roles within the UK pensions and investment management industries. 

In his executive career Mike’s most recent role was as CEO of LGPS Central Limited. Under his leadership assets more than doubled to c£30bn, with several multi-billion-pound fund launches and the establishment of investment fund vehicles spanning both public and private markets asset classes. He drove the responsible investment agenda and delivered the investment performance and cost savings to support long-term pension payments by Partner Funds to their scheme members.

Prior to this Mike was CEO of the Pensions Infrastructure Platform. PiP was a specialist UK infrastructure investor established and funded by UK pension schemes which owned and managed over £1.5bn of assets across healthcare, energy, transport and utility sectors. He also spent 5 years as the Chief Investment Officer for the pension schemes of DMGT plc which maintained significant asset allocations to UK real assets.

Burkhard Kübel-Sorger is the EBRD’s Vice President, Chief Financial Officer (CFO).

A German national, Mr Kübel-Sorger took up his position at the Bank on 1 July 2024.
He succeeds Soha El-Turky, who joined the organisation in the same role in 2020.
Mr Kübel-Sorger comes to the EBRD from J.P. Morgan SE, Frankfurt, where he
worked for 18 years in various roles, including Chief Operating Officer and Chief Risk
Officer. In his most recent capacity, he held the position of CFO and had been a
member of the management board since 2010.

Mr Kübel-Sorger’s career has also included significant roles within the Association of
Foreign Banks in Germany, his tenure there culminating in the role of Chief Executive
Officer.

Burkhard Kübel-Sorger will also be a member of the EBRD’s Executive Committee,
the Bank’s most senior management team.

A senior investment professional with over 20 years’ experience as a multi asset and fixed interest fund manager, Mark has the knowledge and expertise to assist clients with the information and support they need.

Mark also sits on our Research Board, so has a firm-wide view of research across different areas. This enables him to identify and develop research opportunities that are likely to benefit our clients.

Martin is responsible for the L&G’s Private Market Access fund – a semi-liquid global private market fund designed for UK pension investors – as well as a range of DC-focused diversified growth funds. He is a member of L&G Asset Management’s Multi-Asset Funds team. As an asset allocator and fund manager, he has over 15 years of experience with alternative asset classes and the management of fund-of-funds. Prior to joining L&G in September 2012, Martin was a senior investment consultant at Towers Watson where he was a member of its Global Investment Committee and UK Portfolio Construction Group. At TW, his responsibilities included asset class and manager research on liquid and illiquid alternatives. Martin previously worked as a manager at Ernst & Young in its Financial Services Risk Management. He has a PhD (summa cum laude) in economics and finance from the University of St Gallen, graduated from the doctoral programme of the Swiss National Bank at Gerzensee and was a visiting PhD student in economics at UC Berkeley.