Diverse Investment Teams Make Better Investments ***SOLD OUT***

Richard is head of ECI’s Business Services team. Before joining ECI in 2001, Richard spent eight years at PwC, where he gained an ACA. His past investments include Citation and Tragus, and he is on the board of MThree, Make It Cheaper, Edenhouse and Investis. Richard has a degree in material science and metallurgy from Cambridge University.

Maria Blair is a Principal at ghSMART. She serves leaders of high performing organizations across all sectors in the areas of management assessment, leadership coaching and organizational change initiatives and advises their boards, executives, and investors on their most important leadership challenges.

Maria leads major organizational development and transformation projects globally. She led a major strategic transformation initiative at the American Cancer Society, impacting its 6,000 employees and 3 million volunteers and resulting in the largest nonprofit merger in history. She also led performance improvement at several Fortune 50 financial institutions and helped to transform the Rockefeller Foundation’s global organization structure and key processes.

Prior to joining ghSMART, Maria was national vice president of the American Cancer Society, leading strategy and global operations. Previously, Maria was Deputy Associate Director at the White House Council on Environmental Quality. She led an interagency effort to develop Federal recommendations for reducing and mitigating climate risks both domestically and internationally. Prior to the White House, Maria was Associate Vice President and Managing Director at The Rockefeller Foundation, providing leadership and strategic direction for all Foundation initiatives.

Maria began her career as an Associate Principal at McKinsey & Company, where she provided leadership, problem solving expertise and counseling to senior managers in financial institutions, nonprofit and multilateral organizations. Maria was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University’s Balliol College, where she earned a master’s degree in politics, economics and philosophy, and has her BA degree from Harvard University.

Maria leads executive leadership seminars for the Aspen Institute, is the past chair of the board of directors for the Nonprofit Finance Fund, and an Aspen Institute Catto Fellow. She has worked in 15 different countries, and traveled in an additional 45 countries. She lives in London with her husband and two daughters.

Nicki has over ten years’ experience of investing in the UK lower mid-market, including seven years at Inflexion Private Equity. In 2013, she took a sabbatical to complete the Sloan Fellowship Program at Stanford, followed by three years establishing and developing an Education Technology company in California, gaining experience on the entrepreneur’s side of the table! She joined Mark Salter in founding Apiary Capital at the end of 2017 and returned to the UK earlier this year. In July 2018, Apiary announced the close of their oversubscribed debut fund at it’s £200m hard cap and the completion of their inaugural investment in The Appointment Group, which Nicki sits on the board of.

Nicki has an BA from Oxford and a Masters from Stanford. She is also an accomplished amateur athlete and has just finished top 10 in her age group at the 70.3 triathlon World Championships in South Africa.

Toby is responsible for and regular contributor to the private equity coverage across Private Equity International, Secondaries Investor and private funds management and is based in PEI's London office. Toby was previously a consultant advising private equity firms on marketing and public relations.