New Year Investment Club 2022

Jonathan Aitken is a former Member of Parliament, Cabinet Minister, and ex-prisoner. He is now a Prison Chaplain at HMP Pentonville. After coming out of prison he studied Theology at Oxford and resumed his career as a broadcaster and author of 17 books including biographies of President Richard Nixon and Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher as well as two volumes of autobiography. He is also a well-known broadcaster and columnist for the Times, The Daily Mail and other newspapers. Before being elected for Parliament in 1974 he was a war correspondent in Vietnam, a TV presenter and the Chairman of a City of London Merchant Bank. He frequently writes and broadcasts on prison issues and has authored the reports Locked up Potential; Meaningful Mentoring and Whatever happened to the Rehabilitation Revolution for the Centre of Social Justice. Jonathan was ordained in June 2018 at St Paul’s Cathedral by the Bishop of London and ordained a Priest the following year. He now combines being a curate at St Matthew’s Westminster with being a chaplain at HMP Pentonville. He is also a leading light in several prison offender rehabilitation charities.

Mikael Shields is the CEO and co-Founder of Acamar Films, as well as the producer of Bing. Over a period of 30 years Mikael has established an international reputation for identifying, developing and producing a wide range of hit film and television projects, including Oscar-winning Wallace & Gromit, the global phenomenon that is Pingu, BAFTA-winning Hilltop Hospital, live-action titles such as Narnia and the Borrowers, among many others. Mikael has led creative teams in a number of senior roles, including the BBC, EVA Entertainment, Pearson Television, Atom Films, Ealing Studios and most recently at Acamar.

Client Service Director Jon is a Client Service Director in the Clients Department. He joined Baillie Gifford in 2011 and looks after clients invested in the Global Alpha Strategy. Jon previously spent three years at AEGON Asset Management in the Regulatory and Operational Risk Department. He graduated MA (Hons) in Business Studies from the University of Edinburgh in 2007.

Sweta is an Investment Director at Moonfare, with responsibility for investments sourcing and due-diligence. She has over a decade of experience as a Limited Partner investor, investing in Private Markets Funds and Co-investments across a number of strategies having previously headed up Private Equity advisory at bfinance, the global investment consultancy and before that with RPMI Railpen and Adveq. As Moonfare's Partnerships Manager in London, Ed covers institutional relationships with family offices across the UK & Europe. Previously, Ed headed up Business Development and Partnerships at Delio, the UK private markets technology platform, having started his career at Barclays and Edmond de Rothschild's Private Merchant Banking team in London.

Reece Chowdhry has over 10 years of operating and startup investing experience. Reece graduated from Durham University and following that he joined Ernst & Young as a technology management consultant and qualified as an accountant. He has founded, invested in and sold tech startups for over 10 years, from idea to IPO and has a particular focus on B2B Software and Fintech. Jeff Chowdhry has over 30 years of financial experience and was previously responsible for circa. $5 billion of AUM, focusing on emerging markets and sustainable ESG and Impact Investment. He has invested in over 15 early-stage tech companies; he focuses his time leading on RLCs investments in the World of Finance where he holds an abundance of experience as well as the network to help portfolio companies with B2B sales opportunities.

Andrew McCagg is Client Portfolio Manager for Japanese Equities based at Nomura Asset Management UK. Ltd. in London. He joined Nomura Asset Management Co., Ltd. Tokyo in 2008, having graduated with a B.A. in linguistics from the International Christian University. He first worked as Assistant Portfolio Manager at the Advisory Fund Management Department and joined the Japanese Equity team in 2011.