The Team
Executive Team

Patrick Reeve

Patrick Reeve
Patrick qualified as a chartered accountant with Deloitte Haskins & Sells before joining Cazenove & Co where he spent three years in the corporate finance department. He joined Close Brothers Group in 1989, where he was a director of the private equity and corporate finance divisions. He established Close Ventures in 1996 and led the management buyout in 2009.
He has an MA in Modern Languages from Oxford University, and is on the board of the British Venture Capital Association, the Association of Investment Companies and is a member of the audit committee of University College London. Patrick is also a Director of Albion Development VCT PLC, Albion Technology & General VCT PLC, Albion Enterprise VCT PLC and also Albion Community Power PLC.

Will Fraser-Allen

Will Fraser-Allen
Will joined Albion (then Close Ventures) in 2001 since when he has focused on leisure, media, business services and healthcare investing. Will became deputy managing director of Close Ventures in 2007, deputy managing partner of Albion in 2009 and managing partner of Albion in 2019. Some of Will’s current and former investments include Active Hotels, PayAsUGym, Locum’s Nest, LabM, Sift and Peakdale Molecular.
Will qualified as a chartered accountant with CLB in 1996 and then joined the corporate finance team. He holds a BA Hons in History from Southampton University.

Andrew Elder

Andrew Elder
Andrew initially practised as a surgeon for six years, specialising in neurosurgery, before joining the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) as a consultant in 2001. Whilst at BCG he specialised in healthcare strategy, gaining experience with many large, global clients across the full spectrum of healthcare including biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, service and care providers, software and telecommunications. Andrew now focuses on medical technologies, digital health and technology-enabled services to the life-science sector, and has served on the boards of companies ranging from diagnostics, imaging and software to pharmaceuticals and biomarkers. He joined Albion Capital in 2005 and became a partner in 2009. He has an MA plus Bachelors of Medicine and Surgery from Cambridge University and is a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons (England).
Andrew also oversees the management of the UCL Technology Fund in collaboration with UCLB. For more information please visit http://www.ucltf.co.uk

Vikash Hansrani

Vikash Hansrani
Vikash qualified as a chartered accountant with RSM Tenon plc and latterly worked in its corporate finance team. He joined Albion in 2010 where he is currently Operations Partner for the group. He is also Finance Director of Olim Limited and Albion Community Power PLC. He has a BA in Accountancy & Finance from Nottingham Business School.

Adam Chirkowski

Adam Chirkowski
Adam is responsible primarily for investments in the asset backed portfolio. His work includes Albion Community Power, where he sits on the boards of the Hydro and Biogas assets, Albion Care Communities and sits on the board of G.Network. Adam graduated from Nottingham University with a first class degree in industrial economics and a masters in corporate strategy and governance. Prior to joining Albion in 2013, he spent five years working in corporate finance at Rothschild.

Cat McDonald

Cat McDonald
Cat joined the technology investment team in 2018 having previously worked for Goldman Sachs in both New York and London. At Goldman Sachs, Cat executed several high profile transactions across the product space including leveraged buyouts, IPOs and M&A. Prior to Goldman Sachs, Cat studied economics at Harvard University.

Christoph Ruedig

Christoph Ruedig
Christoph focuses on investments in healthcare and renewables. He initially practised as a radiologist, before spending 3 years at Bain & Company. In 2006, he joined 3i working for their Healthcare Venture Capital after which he worked for General Electric's healthcare division, where he was responsible for mergers and acquisitions in the medical technology and healthcare IT sectors. He holds a degree in medicine from Ludwig-Maximilians University, Munich and an MBA from INSEAD.

David Grimm

David Grimm
David manages the UCL Technology Fund, which is investing in commercialisation of life and physical sciences innovations from one of the most important academic institutions in the United Kingdom. He previously worked for 4 years at Spark Impact, a subsidiary of Spark Ventures, investing across medical technology, telehealth and consumer healthcare. He started his career at Detica before moving to China to work in a FMCG start-up. David holds a Masters’ degree in Natural Science (Mathematics and Chemistry).

David Gudgin

David Gudgin
David was a director of Close Ventures and became a partner in Albion in 2009. He initially worked at the BBC and ICL, specialising in commerce, before joining 3i as an investor in 1999. He joined Foursome Investments (now Frog Capital) as the lead investor of two funds, an environmental technology fund and a later stage development capital fund. David is Head of Renewables at Albion and is on the board of many of the Biogas, Hydro and Wind investments.

Ed Lascelles

Ed Lascelles
Ed leads the technology investing at Albion having spent the last 15 years investing in early stage companies, typically in software. Prior to Albion, Ed worked at ING Barings advising UK public companies on M&A, IPOs and fundraisings during the dotcom era. Ed read philosophy at UCL.

Emil Gigov

Emil Gigov
Emil has spent the last 20 years in early stage investing, following an early career with KPMG in London. He has led or supported over 30 investments in rounds from £500k to £18m in sectors including software and IT services, advanced manufacturing, business services, education and healthcare. He has a degree in European Business Administration and is a fellow of the ICAEW (FCA).

Henry Stanford

Henry Stanford
Henry qualified as a chartered accountant with Arthur Andersen before joining the corporate finance department of Close Brothers Group in 1992. He moved to Close Ventures in 1998 and became a partner of Albion Capital in 2009. He retired from a full-time role in 2019. He holds an MA degree in Classics from Oxford University.

India Cornett

India Cornett
India joined Albion in 2017 as a Business Development Associate in order to support Wealth Managers, Private Banks, and assist the Head of Business Development in fundraising activities. Prior to working at Albion, India worked as a Parliamentary Assistant. Having carried out her degree in History of Art at the University Lyon 2, India graduated in 2016 from the Institut d’études superiéures des arts, Paris, with a Masters 2 in Art and Business.

Jay Wilson

Jay Wilson
Jay joined from Bain & Company, where he had been a consultant since 2016 advising private equity and sovereign wealth funds on acquisitions of European technology, financial and business services companies. Prior to this he graduated from London Business School with an MBA having spent eight years in Financial Services.
Jay focusses on all aspects of technology, particularly in how it is redefining Financial Services. From retail to institutional finance, and at every level of the IT stack - blockchain, AI/ML, predictive analytics, robotics and cloud.

Linda Roberson

Linda Roberson
Linda initially qualified as a solicitor with Allen & Overy, working in their London Corporate Finance team, before joining the in-house legal team at 3i Group plc in 1999. At 3i, Linda supported investment transactions and fund raisings, later moving to the Compliance team to focus on regulatory matters. Linda joined Albion in 2016. She holds an LLB in Law and French Law from Birmingham University.

Jessica Bartos

Jessica Bartos
Jessica joined AlbionVC from Rothschild & Co where she served as a Vice President, advising technology, media and telecoms firms on M&A. Working in Rothchild's New York and London offices, Jessica advised companies and investors like AT&T, Intel, KPN, Apax Partners and The Carlyle Group amongst others. She has developed tech specialisms in cloud communications, digital advertising, fintech and enterprise software.

Marco Yu

Marco Yu
Marco specialises in energy related investment and has in-depth knowledge and understanding of energy generation, distribution, balancing, storage as well as servicing the sector. Energy transition and the analysis of big data is where Marco is increasingly using his analytical expertise, networks and market knowledge. Marco has a first-class degree in economics from Cambridge, a PhD in construction economics from UCL and has led over 20 investments to date. Prior to joining Albion in 2007, he qualified as a Chartered Surveyor with Bouygues (UK), and advised on large capital projects with EC Harris. His other claim to fame is as Captain of London, Division 1 winning Table Tennis Team!

Nadine Torbey

Nadine Torbey
Nadine joined the tech Investment team in 2018 from Berytech Fund , one of the first VC funds in the Middle East. She has 6 years to date of investing experience from Seed to Series A in start-ups across AI/ML technologies, digital health, digital platforms and marketplaces and hardware. Nadine has a B.Eng in electrical and computer engineering from The American University of Beirut followed by a specialisation in Innovation Management and Entrepreneurship from Brown University, where she focused on commercialisation of disruptive technologies. Nadine focuses on all aspects of technology and particularly enjoys Deep Tech and AI.

Paul Lehair

Paul Lehair
Paul joined Albion with 10 years of experience in tech both at startups and in investment banking. He came from Citymapper where he was Finance Director for 5 years having joined when the company had less than 10 employees. He also worked in business operations at Viagogo and in M&A TMT at Citigroup beforehand.

Rad Hart-George

Rad Hart-George
Rad is responsible for originating renewable energy investments. Prior to joining Albion in 2015, he spent eight years working in the wind industry, primarily developing onshore wind projects in the UK. He has an undergraduate geography degree from Nottingham University and a masters’ degree from Columbia University in Environmental Science & Policy graduating with a 4.0 GPA. He is a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and was a committee member of RenewableUK’s onshore planning sub-group from 2012- 2015. Outside of work he is a keen cyclist and has recently completed an unassisted circumnavigation of Britain raising in excess of £80k for the RNLI.

Robert Whitby-Smith

Robert Whitby-Smith
Robert has been in venture since 2005 when he joined Albion. He became a partner in 2009. Robert has led over 20 investments in deep tech, enterprise software, fintech and insurtech with recent exits including Atego (PTC), Grapeshot (Oracle), PSE (Siemans). He currently represents Albion on the boards of a number of scale-ups - collectively valued at over £250m. Robert also works on a selected group of seed stage companies as a board adviser. Prior to venture, Robert spent time in corporate finance with Credit Suisse First Boston, ING Baring and KPMG. Robert holds a BA in History and is an FCA.

Simon Goldman

Simon Goldman
Simon manages the UCL Technology Fund, which is investing in commercialisation of life and physical sciences innovations from one of the most important academic institutions in the United Kingdom. He worked for seven and a half years at Goldman Sachs JBWere in Australia, predominantly on the Healthcare & Biotechnology and Portfolio Strategy teams, and has a PhD in neuroscience from the University of Cambridge.

Stuart Mant

Stuart Mant
Stuart joined Albion in 2012 as Head of Sales to raise the profile of the Albion VCT offerings with UK Wealth Managers, Private Banks and Family offices and manage the fundraising activities. In 2016 Stuart’s role was extended to include the development of the deal pipeline across all sectors. Prior to Albion Stuart held senior sales roles with a number of leading fund management houses in both the equity and fixed income markets as well as the tax efficient space.

Tanel Ozdemir

Tanel Ozdemir
Tanel helps manage the UCL Technology Fund, which is investing in commercialisation of life and physical science innovations from one of the most important academic institutions in the United Kingdom. He joined Albion in 2018 having previously been an intern with the investment team in 2016. Tanel completed his PhD and postdoctoral research at UCL where his work was focused on developing synthetic biological tools for microbiome engineering. He also holds an MSc in Nanotechnology and Regenerative Medicine from UCL and a BSc in Human Biology from King’s College London.

Victoria Scott

Victoria Scott
After graduating in Biochemistry at Imperial College, University of London, Victoria moved into sales and marketing with The Observer Newspaper which was quickly followed by joining Associated Newspapers on the launch team of The Mail on Sunday.
After 10 years within the National Newspaper Industry, Victoria moved into the magazine business firstly as Commercial Director and then Board Director helping build Bertelsmann in the UK, then into a broader range of printed and broadcast media as Board Director and Commercial Director EMAP. Victoria then moved into international product development for Reader’s Digest. Victoria joined the team in 2012 and manages marketing and communications for Albion.
Operations Support Team

Stuart Watt

Mike Garrett

Anneliese West

Lauren Donohue

Melissa Clark

Peter Balcombe

Sarah Fitton

Natasha Lloyd

Tanya Middleton

Therese McCloy-Glenholme

Vicki Caplan
