LBO France has added three new members to its team since the beginning of the year, in two of the company’s areas of expertise.
Philippe Chambon and Sébastien Woynar have joined the Venture team, and Nicolas Manardo has joined the Small Cap team at the beginning of 2018.
Philippe Chambon joined LBO France as Venture Partner after a distinguished career in healthcare venture capital in the US. He started his business career in 1987 in the pharmaceutical industry, with Sandoz Pharmaceutical US affiliate and, in 1993, he joined The Boston Consulting Group as a Manager. Starting from 1995, he has made numerous marquis name investments in the digital health sector over the years, first at The Sprout group, and then in 2005, with New Leaf Venture Partners. In his role of Managing Director, he led the fundraising effort of four funds totalling over USD1billion. Chambon earned an MDPhD degree from the University Paris V and an MBA from Columbia University.
New director Woynar has 15 years of international experience in the healthcare sector, having started his career in the healthcare public sector (French Ministry of Health and Paris University Hospitals General directorate) contributing to public health policies and healthcare organisational transformation. In 2010, Woynar joined the home healthcare industry (Orkyn’, Air Liquide Healthcare) as Medical Director and then moving on to be Business Unit Director. Most recently Woynar was Chronic Care Management Program Director and General Manager of CDM e-Health, a branch of Air Liquide Healthcare. Woynar holds a Medical Degree from the University of Versailles-Saint Quentin in France and a Doctoral Degree in Public Health (Policy & Management) from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in the USA. Woynar was trained in health economics, policy and management at Harvard School of Public Health, at the London School of Economics and at Paris-Dauphine, as well as in strategy and marketing at ESSEC.
Valéry Huot, Partner, Head of the Venture team of LBO France, says: “Our team historically holds a double expertise in medicine and technology and we are reinforcing it today with the recruitment of two new members with senior medical profiles. Phillipe has a background in Venture Capital in the US and Sébastien in the medical industry. These recruitments reflect our will to gather the best specialists to answer specific requests and issues regarding innovative SMEs in digital health, especially in the current fundraising context for our new fund, Digital Health 2.”
Manardo, who has joined the Small Cap investment team as Managing Director, started his career in 2000 and has developed a solid experience in the field of investments. With Lazard (2000-2003) and the Société Générale (2006-2009), he has worked in M&A departments and has realized many operations for corporate clients and financial investors. Within the Saint Gobain Group (2003-2006), Nicolas has managed material distribution subsidiaries in France, Mexico and Italy. In 2009, he joined Bpifrance where he was put in charge of Mid Caps investment activities on equity and debt products starting from 2012. Manardo has graduated from ESCP Europe, with a major in Legal and Financial Engineering and he is certified in Lean Management from the Ecole Centrale of Paris.
Jean-Marie Leroy, Partner, Head the Small Cap Investment team, says: “Nicolas’ arrival reinforces the team’s skills in terms of project origination and transaction structuring. This dual approach is essential to meet managers’ needs and support their growth projects over the long term.”
LBO France’s Small Cap team invests in growing French and Italian SMEs with strong international development potential. It now has six employees, including three based in Italy, and benefits from the support of the six members of LBO France’s transverse operational value creation team. 2017 was a very dynamic year with three investments made in the new Franco-Italian fund Small Caps Opportunities: Piex and Serapid in France and Vetroelite in Italy.
