People
Independent fund and corporate services provider, the Aztec Group, has added Pete Blackburn and Farhan Ahmed to its real assets senior leadership team in Luxembourg.
Previously based in the Group’s Jersey office, Blackburn has been with the Group for over 10 years and has held numerous positions in relationship management and financial reporting, gaining exposure to a wide range of asset classes and structures, including mezzanine, mid-market buyout funds and fund of funds. He was promoted to Associate Director in 2013.
In his new role, Blackburn will have overall responsibility for a portfolio of real estate and infrastructure clients,
Following a record year of investment and fundraising activity in 2018, Churchill Asset Management (Churchill), a majority-owned affiliate of Nuveen focussed on originating, underwriting and managing middle market senior loan investments, has promoted Mat Linett, Managing Director, from Deputy Head of Underwriting and Portfolio Management to Head of Underwriting, and Eric Wieczorek to Managing Director, Underwriting and Portfolio Management.
Linett will be responsible for overseeing all underwriting activities at Churchill, working closely with George Kurteson, Head of Portfolio Management. Linett joined the company in April 2015 and has been integral in leading numerous investments, building out the firm’s risk management
BGF has appointed Sophie Brand as an investor in its Leeds office. Brand joins from Deloitte, where she spent nearly eight years working across the firm’s Leeds and London offices.
After qualifying as a Chartered Accountant in Deloitte’s audit practice, Brand has spent the past four years working in the M&A team gaining particular experience of transactions in retail and consumer markets.
Brand’s role at BGF will involve all aspects of the investment process from meeting business owners when they’re first considering funding to due diligence and actively working alongside a number of portfolio companies after completion.
BGF’s
Tax specialist William Jean-Baptiste has joined Ogier’s team in Luxembourg as a tax partner.
Jean-Baptiste (pictured), who joins Ogier’s eight-strong partnership in Luxembourg, focuses on tax structuring of international investment transactions, investment funds and on-going tax management.
His experience covers acquisitions and holding structures for real estate, private equity and private capital investment, financing, mergers, acquisitions and reorganisations of financial institutions, securitisation and structured financial products.
Jean-Baptiste’s corporate and funds tax advisory practice is supplemented by experience in wealth planning and family office services for private clients in the management of their cross-border legal and tax planning needs.
Latham & Watkins has appointed Ivana K Rouse as a partner in the Corporate Department and a member of the Investment Funds Practice in the firm’s Houston office.
Rouse’s practice covers a broad range of private funds, including private equity-style energy, credit and mid-market funds, cryptocurrency funds and hedge funds.
“We are excited to welcome Ivana to the Corporate Department and to the firm. She has an excellent track record in the investment funds space and will be be an incredible anchor for the group here in Houston. Her sophisticated experience and legal skills will help clients take
Morrison & Foerster has appointed Christopher Kandel as a partner in the firm’s Finance practice in London.
Kandel brings to the firm a wealth of experience in leveraged finance and complex international acquisition finance, and restructuring transactions. He comes to Morrison & Foerster from Latham & Watkins, where he served as co-chair of the global banking practice.
Kandel is the third partner to join the firm’s London Finance Department in less than a year, following the noteworthy additions of Caroline Jury, who joined from Clifford Chance, and Benoit Lavigne, who joined from Ropes & Gray, as the firm accelerates
Neuberger Berman, a private, independent, employee-owned investment manager, has hired Joe McDonnell as head of portfolio solutions (EMEA).
McDonnell will be part of the quantitative and multi-asset class investments team at Neuberger Berman, reporting to co-heads Erik Knutzen and Doug Kramer.
In this newly-created role, McDonnell will be responsible for designing and overseeing multi-asset mandates and engaging with strategic partners. He will leverage the broader Neuberger Berman platform to identify customised quantitative solutions and to help construct, oversee and implement portfolios to meet specific client objectives.
McDonnell joins from Morgan Stanley Investment Management, where he spent ten years
European impact investment bank ClearlySo has appointed Gillian Wilmot as chairman.
Wilmot has a strong background in the consumer sector before she developed a wide range of corporate, non-profit and government experience in a variety of fields. She is also an experienced mentor and has helped coach many high growth businesses and their executive teams.
Wilmot joins two other recent board additions – Tracy Lewis and Jospeh Krant.
Lewis is chairman of Inspired Thinking Group, and a non-executive director of Staffline Group Plc and Bluebella Lingerie, following a successful career as an entrepreneur in the retail sector. Krant,
Schroders has appointed a private assets specialist to oversee the continued growth and development of its business on a global scale.
Georg Wunderlin, most recently the Chief Executive Officer of HQ Capital, a leading alternatives manager, will assume the newly-created role of Global Head of Private Assets in May.
He will focus on developing and executing Schroders’ private assets growth strategy across these specialist asset classes on a global scale and enabling the business to better deliver private assets-focused investment solutions for clients.
He will report into Group Chief Executive Peter Harrison and join the Group Management
UK venture capital firm Vala Capital has appointed Jane Holland, ex-Financial Director at investment company The Ingenious Group, as the firm’s new COO.
Holland’s appointment will help the firm grow its radical, investor-friendly EIS fund with her overseeing the management of the firm’s day to day operations.
The new COO is a chartered accountant and spent nine years at The Ingenious Group, before which she worked in other senior financial roles at companies in the food and beverage and FMCG sectors.
Holland says: “I’m very pleased to have joined Vala. I was intrigued by how the team are
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12 November, 2026 – 8:00 am
12 November, 2026 – 5:00 pm
