Augmentum Team

Meet our experienced Board of Directors and Portfolio Manager

The Board of Directors

The Board of Directors are responsible for the determination of the Company’s investment policy and strategy and have overall responsibility for the Company’s activities including the review of investment activity and performance and the control and supervision of the Company’s service providers, including the Portfolio Manager.

All of the Directors are non-executive and are independent of the Portfolio Manager and the other service providers.

The Directors will meet at least four times a year to, inter alia, review and assess the Company’s investment policy and strategy, the risk profile of the Company, the Company’s investment performance, the performance of the Company’s service providers, including the Management Team and the AIFM, and generally to supervise the conduct of its affairs. The audit committee will meet at least twice per annum.

Augmentum Team

Neil England

Chairman of the Board and of the Nominations Committee

Bio
Augmentum Team

Karen Brade

Chairman of the Audit Committee

Bio
Augmentum Team

David Haysey

Chairman of the Management & Remuneration Committee and of the Valuations Committee

Bio
Augmentum Team

Conny Dorrestijn

Director

Bio

Portfolio Manager

The portfolio is managed by Augmentum Fintech Management Limited, a specialist fund management and advisory business whose experienced and entrepreneurial management team has a strong track record in fintech venture capital. The Portfolio Manager is based in London and is authorised and regulated in the UK by the FCA.

The Portfolio Manager has entered into service agreements with each of Tim Levene and Richard Matthews, the Co-Founders and Principals of The Portfolio Manager and whose biographies, along with information on the rest of the Augmentum Fintech Management Limited team, are set out here. The Company leverages The Portfolio Manager’s years of experience, expertise and networks in the fintech sector to drive value creation in its investee companies.

In addition, The Portfolio Manager consults with an advisory panel of individuals with particular industry expertise (the “Advisory Panel”). The key members of the Advisory Panel can be viewed here.

Modern Slavery Act 2015: As an investment vehicle, the Company does not provide goods or services in the normal course of business and does not have customers. Accordingly, the directors consider that the Company is not required to make any slavery or human trafficking statement under the Modern Slavery Act 2015.

Read about the anti-bribery and corruption policies here.

Read about the Company’s zero-tolerance approach to the criminal facilitation of tax evasion here.

Augmentum Team

Martyn Holman

Martyn has nearly 20 years of experience as an operator, advisor and investor in tech and growth spaces.

Martyn’s early career was spent as a strategy consultant with the Boston Consulting Group, consulting to FTSE 50 clients across consumer, energy, financial services and heavy industry. Since this time he has accrued 15 years of experience as both an operator and investor in the tech/VC space. He was a key member of the early Betfair team, the UK’s first true Unicorn, and later co-founded LMAX Exchange which has since featured as the number 1 Times Tech Track Growth Company.

Most recently Martyn spent nearly 5 years as an investor and partner in UK venture capital where he helped raise a £60m early seed fund. Martyn is a graduate of Jesus College, Cambridge University, from where he graduated in 1996 with a first class degree in engineering, and has an MBA from the Said Business School in Oxford, gained with Distinction in 2001.

Martyn now joins Augmentum Fintech as a Partner.

Learn more about Martyn in his ‘Meet the Investor’ feature here

Chairman of the Board and of the Nominations Committee

Neil England

Neil has extensive international business expertise in a career spanning public and private companies varying in size from start-ups to global corporations. His career started in manufacturing and he has held leadership roles in sales, marketing and general management across sectors including food, FMCG, distribution and technology.

Neil was a Vice President of Mars Incorporated; Group Chief Executive at The Albert Fisher Group plc and Group Commercial Director at Gallaher Group plc. Additionally he started two technology businesses and has advised on others. Neil has been Chairman of a number of companies, most recently ITE Group plc, Blackrock Emerging Europe plc and three private businesses. Neil is Chairman of Schroder British Opportunities Trust Plc.

Chairman of the Audit Committee

Karen Brade

Karen has extensive experience in project finance and private equity. She started her career at Citibank where she worked on various multi-national project finance transactions. Karen worked at CDC (Commonwealth Development Corporation), the UK’s development finance institution, where she held a variety of positions in equity and debt investing, portfolio management, fund raising and investor development.

Karen has been an adviser to hedge funds, family offices and private equity houses for a number of years. She is currently Chairman of Aberdeen Japan Investment Trust PLC and Keystone Investment Trust plc. Karen is also a Non-Executive Director of HeiQ plc.

David Haysey

Chairman of the Management & Remuneration Committee and of the Valuations Committee

David has extensive experience in the investment business, working on both public and private equities, and asset allocation. He started his career as a stockbroker, and held a number of senior positions, including as head of European equities for SG Warburg plc and Deutsche Bank AG and CIO and co-CEO of Deutsche Asset Management’s European Absolute Return business. David previously worked for RIT Capital Partners plc, where he was a board member and head of public equities. He joined the multi-strategy firm Marylebone Partners from its launch as head of liquid strategies. Since his retirement he has been a non-executive partner and member of the firm’s investment committee.

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Conny Dorrestijn

Director

Named one of the ‘2021 Top Ten Voices in European Fintech’ Conny Dorrestijn has a focused career in innovation for the international financial technology sector, previously at Clear2Pay/FIS and as Founding Partner at BankiFi: a developer of technology ‘putting banks at the heart of business’. She is also Chair of the Supervisory Board at Blanco Services (NL), Chair of the Supervisory Board at Cobase (NL), an non-executive director to the Board of Augmentum Fintech (UK), an Associate of the Digital Insurance Agenda (DIA) and a Global Innovation Awards Judge at BAI (US). She is a co-host/producer of the regular Fintech Cappuccino podcast.

With empowerment high on her agenda, she actively engages and collaborates with young people to help them build ‘social capital’. She is a mentor for Women in Payments (WIP) programme and acted as Advisory Board Member and mentor for Money2020 Europe Rise Up programme. She actively supports the Global Give Back Circle: Mentor, Educate, Empower & Employ HER for girls at risk.