European Association Conference 2023

Will Nutting has been writing about and investing in markets since the 1990s focused on US and global equities. He believes in a common sense and thematic approach to investing, beginning with the macro and drilling down into a long portfolio that is grounded in long term secular trends. Investing needs to be fun and logical. You do not need to have a Ph.D. in quantum mathematics or even a university degree to invest in markets. Likewise, you do not need a fund manager to buy and sell your stocks, any more than you need a foreign exchange broker to change your holiday money. Will holds a belief that your portfolio should reflect what is going on in the world today, and the tilt of your portfolio should change as the world changes. Just as in life, the stock market has clear winners and losers. Will's aim, is to identify these and demystify what is actually very straightforward.

James is a partner in K&L Gates's London Energy, Infrastructure and Resources Group  He has deep knowledge in traditional greenfield and brownfield project development, project finance, construction, commercial operations and M&A. He has experience in low-carbon and energy transition technologies including large-scale nuclear, wind, solar, hydropower, green hydrogen, CCUS, and BES systems, among others. He advises a diverse clientele on structuring, capital sourcing, and executing transactions spanning the breadth of the energy and infrastructure spectrum.

Sir Michael Fallon was the UK’s Defence Secretary from 2014 to 2017. He began the British training of the Ukrainian army after the invasion of Crimea and led Britain’s contribution to the Coalition against the Daesh. Earlier he served in David Cameron’s government as Industry Minister and Energy Minister, responsible for renewable energy, nuclear, electricity markets, oil and gas. Sir Michael is chairman of Investcorp’s Gulf infrastructure fund, deputy chairman of Genel Energy Plc, and a non-executive director of other companies. He continues to write and broadcast on defence, security and energy issues.

James Watt is a Partner in the Ambassador Partnership LLP (www.ambassadorllp.com), a political risk and diplomatic training consultancy based in London, following a career in the British Diplomatic Service specialising in the Middle East.   His final post was as British Ambassador to Egypt in 2011-14, during a time of political upheaval, and he had earlier served as Ambassador to Jordan (2006-11) and Lebanon (2003-06).   Starting his career in 1977, and serving in the UAE, in the UK's UN Mission in New York, in Jordan and in Pakistan, as well as at headquarters in London, he found himself dealing with regional conflicts and the diplomacy involved in containing them.  He continues to write and speak on regional topics, and takes a close interest in the cross-disciplinary domains of public health in conflict (including mental health) and education in conflict. He also chairs the International Advisory Board for a project led by King’s College London: Research for Health Systems Strengthening in Syria ([www.r4hsss.org](http://www.r4hsss.org/)).  Additionally he is a trustee of the Centre for Lebanese Studies ([www.lebanesestudies.com](http://www.lebanesestudies.com/)).  He and his wife live between their homes in London and Beirut. 

Tor McLaren has a wide range of experience across media and communications, finance, intelligence and strategy. He is a founder at Tiller, a trusted and connected network with recourse to hard-to-access information and authenticated insights. He is a former partner of Nash Capital Group, which provides funding, M&A and corporate finance advisory services, alongside direct investment access to rapidly growing private companies. He was appointed member of the Trade Policy Research Centre’s Strategic Advisory Committee, a specialist group of political strategists advising government on international trade policy and activity. Prior to that, he had a spent his career launching, acquiring and selling media businesses, including the launch of Australia’s Foxtel and Galaxy platforms, before returning to the UK to work for NBC Universal’s UK and EMEA television channels business as Director of Channels. Having served on the boards of start-ups and multinationals, Tor has a broad knowledge of corporate governance issues, with skills that encompass corporate strategic development, marketing and communications, public policy presentation and change leadership. He is a Fellow of The Royal Society of Arts and an active supporter of research into cancer and genetic disease and has served on board of the National Institute of Health Research’s Pancreas Biomedical Research Unit.

Gagik Apkarian is the founder of Tetrad Capital Partners.  Prior to Tetrad, he was the co-founder of Vulcan Capital – the investment office of Paul Allen (co-founder of Microsoft), where he had a dual mandate: to restructure $10Bn+ of legacy direct investments and to pursue new opportunities. He was responsible for companies from $100MM to $20Bn. He was a member of Vulcan’s Investment Committee.   Prior to Vulcan he was an investment banker with Morgan Stanley. During his career in New York and London he executed $100bn+ of transactions. Previously he worked at McKinsey & Company. Mr. Apkarian holds an MBA from Harvard Business School.  He also holds a B.Sc. in mathematics, a B.Sc. in physics, and a B.E. in electrical engineering from UNSW | Sydney.

Max Hartley, Managing Director, Canaccord Genuity, has over 18 years of investment banking experience across a wide range of industry sectors including financial services, technology, real estate, and life sciences. Throughout his career Max has worked on more than 100 transactions across a range of both M&A and ECM. His areas of expertise include: IPOs and secondary fundraisings, mergers and acquisitions, general corporate finance advisory, liaison with stock exchange and other regulators. Max was previously with Cenkos, where he worked with senior leaders of the Canaccord Genuity team for over 14 years.

Nicholas is the Managing Director of Pelican Worldwide Ltd. He is actively involved in liaising directly with clients, managing the team and overseeing Pelican’s output. He has worked in the business intelligence and investigations sector for over 22 years. His breadth of experience and international network of specialist contacts enable Pelican to offer highly personal, bespoke solutions to clients’ needs and problems. It is the depth of his network that clients continue to engage Pelican. Nicholas started his career in financial PR before moving into the sector in 1999. Prior to founding Pelican in 2010, Nicholas worked for a number of leading London-based international investigations firms.

Simon is a partner in the Corporate team and head of the Firm’s Businesses group. His focus is on private capital and providing advice to clients on investing and protecting their capital in corporate and alternative asset classes. A significant amount of Simon’s work is in the private equity market where he acts for private and family offices making direct investment or co-investing alongside traditional private equity funds; senior executives and management teams on buy-outs and joining private equity backed businesses, and international investors and acquirers, particularly within the financial services industry and venture capital.

Stellar Business Consulting Chris Dionne, Managing Partner of Stellar Business Consulting, is a master business consultant with 25 years of experience in training, educating, and coaching business owners and executives on how to best position their businesses for scalable growth. Over the course of his career, Chris has taken his experience of building equity value and sustainability and applied it to his own businesses, as well as training countless small-tomedium businesses worldwide. In addition to working with SMEs, Chris has consulted with divisions of large corporations, has worked one-on-one with top CEOs and business owners, and holds a number of client Advisory Board positions including Chairman. Chris educates his clients on the fundamental elements of business, both commercially and culturally, and given his funds management background, Chris brings a unique level of expertise to understanding economic cycles and how to work with the market to reap the rewards. In Chris’ view, many businesses have underperformed through market cycles and are not aware of the hidden value within their business. By focusing on key areas, his clients have increased their performance and, as a result, their overall equity value. In 1999, Chris co-founded Shirlaws Group, and using Shirlaws IP, he and his founding partners made the BRW Fast 100 list two years running in 2003 (7th) and 2004 (57th). In 2003 Chris was instrumental in expanding the enterprise globally, where today it has become a successful business coaching and consulting firm specialising in the SME market. In 2017, Chris took the opportunity to refresh his focus and as part of his succession strategy, founded Stellar Business Consulting, a boutique firm with a collaborative team of best-inclass business leaders to complement his own skills. Some key points about Chris. He: o Has the foresight to extract opportunities for clients’ businesses o Leaves businesses with a habitual change process by transferring skills, IP and knowledge o Empowers and motivates high level sales professionals to improve performance o Facilitates strategic retreats for senior management and leadership teams to create alignment o Understands cultural barriers that assists with international expansion o Advises on board structures and corporatisation of enterprises moving to the next level of maturity

With a 1st class honours degree in Industrial Design, Matt created the world's first fully portable video laryngoscope, transforming intubation practices worldwide. Intubation, a crucial and enabling procedure for most surgeries globally, saw a revolution due to McGrath's innovation. In 2001, he established Aircraft Medical to commercialize this technology, guiding the organization to a $110 million acquisition by Medtronic in 2015. McGrath has over 100 medical device patents to his name, and the McGrath Laryngoscope has been extensively studied in over 50 peer-reviewed articles. His accolades include awards from The Royal Society of Arts, The Princes Trust, The Wellcome Trust, and The Royal Society of Edinburgh. With his equipment benefiting tens of millions of patients, the McGrath name resonates profoundly in global medical circles.

Brian Firth brings to Gemina an enviable career, focused on health-tech, specifically Point-of-Care diagnostics. He is an accomplished executive with extensive international experience in the sector. Brian spent nearly 8 years at Swiss Precision Diagnostics, one of the worlds leading point of care diagnostics companies, with operations in more than 50 countries. Swiss Precision Diagnostics is the manufacturer of the globally recognised and market leading Clearblue family of pregnancy and fertility monitoring point of care tests. Brian acted as Managing Director of Swiss Precision Diagnostics’ UK subsidiary before becoming Chief Operating Officer of Swiss Precisions Diagnostic GmbH (the parent company) in Geneva Switzerland. At Swiss Precision, Brian was responsible for a broad range of business processes including quality management, human resources, regulatory affairs, customer service and research leadership. Swiss Precision is jointly owned by Procter & Gamble and Abbott Laboratories. Prior to his time at Swiss Precision, Brian was a management consultant for Coopers and Lybrand, working with a blue-chip client roster before he established his own advisory practice focused on health-tech and speciality chemistry businesses, working with companies such as AGFA, Johnson & Johnson, Akzo Nobel and Inverness Medical, where he played a key role in establishing the business that was sold to Johnson & Johnson for $1.3 billion. Subsequently, he founded The Health Works Ltd (a specialist operations consultancy) that was eventually sold to GE Healthcare. His career has also included time in the human wellness market, particularly human performance monitoring for applications in sports medicine and workplace diagnostics. 

Sean McClain is the Founder and CEO of Absci, a leading generative AI Drug Creation company with a mission to create better biologics for patients, faster. Sean embodies entrepreneurial spirit, having built Absci from basement lab to a publicly traded company and continuing to strive towards his vision to create therapeutics at the click of a button. Under his leadership, Absci scaled to over 200 employees, raised over $450M in capital, established a growing number of industry-leading partnerships, and built an Integrated Drug Creation Platform that merges bleeding-edge generative AI models with proprietary high-throughput wet-lab data. Sean studied biochemistry and molecular biology at the University of Arizona and has been the recipient of numerous recognitions for his entrepreneurship and innovation. He serves as a board member for the Oregon Translational Research and Development Institute, and Life Science Washington.

Dr. Helliwell is the Co-founder and CEO of Eupraxia Pharmaceuticals. A board-certified Cardiac Anesthesiologist, he previously maintained a busy quaternary clinical and academic practice with a focus on cardiac transplantation and held a double tenure as President of the Anesthesiologists of BC. Dr. Helliwell’s experience in the operating room and ICU instilled an appreciation for the value of precision drug delivery to achieve successful patient outcomes. This led him to create Eupraxia Pharmaceuticals, a company developing precision medicines in areas of high unmet medical need. In 2021, Eupraxia became the first biotech to successfully list exclusively on the Toronto Stock Exchange in almost 20 years. The company’s lead product candidate – a long-acting corticosteroid to treat osteoarthritis pain – is currently in Phase 2 clinical development. Dr. Helliwell has also applied precision delivery to the medical device space. As Co-founder and CEO of Accuro Technologies, he invented Arthrotap® – a medical device to improve the accuracy of intra-articular injections. After successfully transacting on Accuro, he moved on to serve as Chair of the Board for Guidestar Medical Devices – a company focused on precision medicines delivery for the epidural space.

Managing Director (CEO): Dr. Patrick Pfeffer (born 1980), founder of Aescuvest, responsible for business development and strategic corporate management. He graduated with a degree in bioinformatics and a doctorate in pharmaceutical chemistry. He also holds a diploma in business administration. Before founding aescuvest in 2014, he made a marketing career as specialist in digital marketing for pharma and health media companies. As general manager of WebMD Global he drove the expansion of Medscape, a global platform for physicians and healthcare professionals, into the French and German markets. As an advisor for systemic marketing and partnering strategies, he worked for multi-national organizations in the health sector.    Patrick purely stands for “The future of health is shaped in Europe.” #investinhealth #10xhealth

Gavin is a chartered accountant and chartered tax adviser. Having qualified in Guernsey, he worked in London and qualified as a barrister, before returning to the island in 1995, following which he worked in the fiduciary sector.   He was a partner with international accounting firms KPMG and Deloitte, Deputy Chief Executive of Walbrook Group, a MBO from Deloitte, and held senior positions with Kleinwort Benson and Barclays Wealth. He is a former Deputy Chair of STEP Worldwide   He was elected to Guernsey's parliament in April 2012 and served as Treasury and Resources Minister until 30th April 2016. Following his re-election in April 2016, he was elected as Guernsey’s Chief Minister and served in that role until October 2020. Having been returned for a third term the island's 2020 General Election, he is currently a backbencher and an active non-executive director.

Ruth Bloch-Riemer’s practice focuses on domestic and international tax law, regularly advising Swiss and foreign high net worth individuals in all taxation matters, particularly with regard to wealth and succession planning, taxation of art and artists, as well as regarding domestic and international structuring and coordination of pension and social security, including both compliance work and non-contentious procedures as well as litigations. Ruth teaches, i.a. within the University of Zurich's LLM program on international tax law, is a frequent lecturer in domestic and international conferences and regularly publishes in her area of expertise. She is acknowledged by Legal 500 2023 as "Next Generation Partner", ranked in Band 4 in Chambers High Net Worth (HNW) 2022 and has been awarded Gold as 'Lawyer of the Year, Switzerland' at the IFC Awards 2023.

Lisa leads PwC’s International Private Wealth team in Switzerland, working with international private clients and family offices. She has over 20 years of experience advising some of the world’s largest and most complex family groups. Her specialty is the establishment of family wealth-holding vehicles (including family offices) and helping families ensure that their family offices are fit for purpose on an ongoing basis. Lisa also provides international tax and structuring advice.

Mike Gill is a 2nd Gen Family Member of a prominent Sikh Family in the UK. He is a qualified Accountant and holds an MBA from one of the top UK Management colleges. In 2011 Mike took over from his father as the Principal of the a Family Office based in Mayfair, London. He serves the entire family which are based in the UK, Malaysia and the US. Mike leads the house team in managing the diverse £1.7B investment portfolio in RE development, Medtech, Biotech and Fintech. The whole asset portfolio is integrated into their own in house technology platform.

Egor co-founded Greenlock with Danil Knyazev. The pair met in 2012 while working for a strategy consulting firm where they were tasked with transforming the investment processes for a major energy producer.  A decade later, they regrouped to bring transparency and reduce the complexity of investment fees, thereby maximising the value delivered by financial intermediaries to MFOs and FOs. As of today, Greenlock has over $2bn AUM under reporting. Egor holds an MBA from the University of Cambridge, Judge Business School, as well as a Master's degree in Operations Research from the University of British Columbia. In 2019, he was awarded a green belt in Lean Six Sigma. In addition to his experience with Greenlock, he has also worked for Accenture Strategy and Schlumberger Business Consulting.

Reg is part of a multi-generational family legacy, founded in 1919 in India, and the Chairman of its Single Family Office, based out of Dubai & London. He has built 15 start-ups to date and worked directly with 206 UHNW Family Offices over 21 years, advising them to generate $12b+ in Revenue Growth & Equity Value. In addition, he is a Global Educator & Author of 7 books, whose delivered over 2,000 live speeches in 66 countries to date. He is the Founder & CEO of Verchool Holdings, a Deep-Tech B2B start-up, established in 2022 in Dubai & Silicon Valley.

Amer is a third-generation family business member and coordinates the holdings through Ikigai Ventures in Switzerland. The approach is hands-on and active, identifying businesses that are catalysts for making an impact in their sectors. Amer has a background in finance with Rothschild Bank and a multi-family office in Zurich. He started his career in London advising on private equity and M&A at First Capital and direct investments at First Ventures. Amer studied Manufacturing and Management at Cambridge University and earned a Bachelor of Engineering and Bachelor of Commerce with Japanese from Birmingham University, which included a year on scholarship in Japan. He holds a Diploma in Accounting and Finance (ACCA) and an Investment Management Certificate (IMC) from the CFA Institute. Amer is on the committee of Philanthropy Impact in Zurich and lectures on impact investing at the Anant University, where he has also founded the Ikigai Scholarship to help disadvantaged students.

Simon Minder is an independent family office advisor with over 17 years of experience in the family office industry. Primarily, he supports families and single-family offices as member of the investment committee and/or represents them as a member of the board of directors for one of their investments. In addition, he supports families in setting up their family office. As part of this offering, he helps in the selection process for a suitable software solution. He also supports existing family offices in the selection and/or replacement process of software solutions.

> Myriam Vander Elst is a member of the 6th generation of food industrialists in northern France. The family business was sold in the early 2000s and Myriam and her family witnessed a profound redefinition of the family dynamics as a direct result of the liquidity event. >   > Myriam found in philanthropy the sense of purpose that was lost after the family business sale, and she established Epic Foundation in Europe in 2015 from her London kitchen. Epic had been initially launched in NYC by its Founder, Alexandre Mars the month before. >   > A graduate from LSE and Sciences Po Paris, Myriam spent 15 years in the private sector as a communication & brand strategist for world-leading agencies such as BMP-DDB and Dentsu.

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Michael is a scientist and economist trying to promote societal advance through better finance and technology. In 1994 he founded Z/Yen, the City of London’s leading think-tank and venture firm, renowned for its Global Financial, Green Finance, and Smart Centres indices. Educated at Harvard, Trinity College Dublin, and LSE, he has been a senior accountancy partner and Ministry of Defence Director. Michael is a fellow of KCL, Goodenough, and Gresham College, visiting professor at UCL, honorary bencher at Middle Temple, active in fourteen livery companies, and Alderman and late Sheriff of the City of London 2019-2021, with charity interests in the environment, education, and care. He is Lord Mayor of London elect for 2023-2024.

James is a Partner with Forsters LLP (London) and advises high net worth clients, family offices, entrepreneurs, trustees and investors. He has extensive experience advising clients and families on a wide range of succession planning and family governance matters. This includes assisting clients with trust and foundation structuring, Wills, family business succession, family charters and the establishment of family vehicles and investment companies. He is also deeply experienced in UK tax planning, including residence and domicile matters. James advises clients around the world, with a special focus on the Middle East where he travels very frequently dealing with families and their family offices.