Managing Partners

Kit worked for JP Morgan in New York and London before moving to J Rothschild in 1983. In 1985 Kit founded The Summit Group which became a diversified financial group encompassing vendor finance, property investment and services, structured finance and insurance many of which commenced as start up operations. By 1991 Summit had total assets of over £500 million. In 1999 Kit and his management colleagues returned surplus capital to shareholders and bought out all the other shareholders' interests. The Summit Group continues to invest in early stage businesses retaining either majority or substantial minority interests and actively participates in their management.

John May’s experience in private equity capital over the last 18 years ranges from venture capital fund management to angel investing. John has been at the forefront of the U.S. angel investor movement. In 1991, he co-founded the Investors’ Circle, a national non-profit group of 125 family and institutional investors working to grow the social venture capital industry. The Private Investors Network was an angel network sponsored by the Mid-Atlantic Venture Association which he led from 1996 until 2002. John is now Chairman of the Angel Capital Association, a 200-member alliance of North American Angel groups. Mr. May co-founded The Dinner Club in 1999, an investment group of 60 regional angels who collectively invest in regional early stage ventures , followed by the eMedia Club, and the Washington Dinner Clubs with 75 investors each. New Vantage Group administers all of these groups. As a venture capitalist, Mr. May has been a general partner or advisor to six early stage venture funds. He has authored two books on angel investing and is a faculty member at the Darden School of Business, University of Virginia.

Mark, who was born in the UK in 1971, gained a BA (Hons) Accounting & Finance and an MA Economics & Finance before starting his career in 1995 as an Equity Analyst and Fund Manager at stockbrokers Williams de Broe plc.

As part of his professional training he undertook a series of exams and further qualifications including FSA Registered Representative, Investment Managers Certificate and AIIMR Institute of Investment Management & Research (now known as CFA).

In 1999 he took part in a management buy-out which resulted in the transfer of £500m of funds and investors to Brewin Dolphin plc. At Brewin’s he was responsible for the Investment Selection Committee team managing more than £500m of client funds. In 2001 he was part of the founding team of a chain of healthy eating cafes based in London. In 2003 he was employed by GLE working with both the London Business Angels Network and the London Seed Capital Fund. As London Seeds Investment Director he was responsible for recruiting and vetting SMEs seeking equity finance, performing due diligence analysis on potential investee companies, structuring and negotiating deals and monitoring investee companies. He built the portfolio to a total of 18 companies across a range of sectors. He was also responsible for managing the first three London Business Angels EIS Tracker Funds which were invested across a total of 12 investee companies.

Paul is Managing Director of Pi Capital. He has over 20 years of private equity experience, including 19 with ECI, the London based mid-market buy-out house, where he was Managing Director until retiring in 2003. He became a partner and shareholder of ECI after helping to arrange ECI’s own buy-out from its initial backers in 1986. The company was acquired by NM Rothschild in 1995 and reacquired in a second management buy-out in 1999. During his time with the firm, ECI made over 100 investments in transactions ranging in size from £500,000 to £25 million, deploying capital of over £200 million. Previously he was with Price Waterhouse for 6 years, latterly in corporate finance. He is a physics graduate and a chartered accountant. He is also on the board of Venus VCT plc, recently established to invest in on-shore wind projects.