Gresham House
Strategic plc Gresham House
Strategic plc

Richard works in our Strategic Public Equity team. He entered fund management 20 years ago and is a Chartered Accountant. After initially starting at a hedge fund, he moved to Société Générale Asset Management where he was made Head of UK Small Companies after becoming a CFA charter holder in 2002.

Richard then became a Founding Partner of River and Mercantile Asset Management in 2006, responsible for the top quartile performing UK Small company and UK Income Funds and helping grow the business to over £2bn AUM. In 2013 he joined Majedie Asset Management to initially co-manage and then solely run the small companies investments within the flagship UK Equity Service. These investments peaked at over £900m, while overall firm AUM doubled to £15bn during his tenure.

CEO Tony is an experienced investor with over 20 years in the industry and has advised numerous public and private equity businesses. In December 2014, Tony became CEO of Gresham House and brought in a new management team that has transformed the company from an investment trust into an AIM listed specialist asset management group.

Tony started his career at Phillips & Drew Fund Management (later UBS Global Asset Management), one of the UK’s most prominent value investment firms with £60 billion in assets at its peak. He was a member of the UK Equity Investment Committee with responsibility for managing over £1.5bn of UK equities. Tony holds an MA in Management Studies from the University of Cambridge.

Laurence works alongside Richard Staveley in the Strategic Equity team, looking at both public and private equity transactions across a range of sectors for Gresham House Strategic. He also supports fundraising and investment activities for our Real Assets division.

Laurence has a Bachelor’s Degree in Politics with Economics from the University of Warwick. During his studies, Laurence interned at Rothschild & Co, working on the Mergers and Acquisitions Team in the industrial sector, and at Barclays Capital on the equities trading floor

Between 1981-1989, David was a Managing Director of Samuel Montagu, Midland Montagu and Midland Global Corporate Banking (now HSBC). David was also a Managing Director of CSFB and its predecessor companies (1969-1981). David is currently a non executive director of Fundsmith Emerging Equities Trust, Chairman of Illustrated London News and a member of the Advisory Board of ALVA Capital.

He is a Council member of The Centre for the Study of Financial Innovation, Chairman of the National Film and TV Foundation, The Bryanston Foundation and a Trustee of Step Together Volunteering.. He is a member of the Investment Committee of King’s College London where he is a Fellow.

Appointed to the Board of Spark Ventures on 20 March 2002, and Chairman from 25 September 2009. He assumed the Chairmanship of the renamed Gresham House Strategic in August 2015

Charles was an executive with SPARK from 2001 to 2005 working as a director at Aspex, Mergermarket, Kobalt, and Insurancewide.com. He was involved with SPARK’s investments in Pricerunner (sold to ValueClick), Safelogic (sold to Jasper Design Automation), and IntelligentApps (sold to Sage plc). Since leaving his executive role, Charles has worked at Virgin Group building Virgin’s mobile phone and related ventures around the globe, and also at Lloyds Banking Group working on restructuring the bank’s customers, and also the Group’s Strategy.

Charles is now Corporate Development Director for DST Systems Inc a US quoted technology and services business supporting the asset management industry. Appointed to the Board on 15 September 2004. Charles chairs the audit committee.

Helen has an MA in Economics from the University of Cambridge and an MBA from INSEAD Business School. After working in investment banking Helen spent nearly 8 years at 3i plc focusing on MBOs and growth capital investments. She later co-founded Matrix Private Equity (now Mobeus) in early 2000 raising Mobeus Income & Growth 2 VCT plc (formerly Matrix e-Ventures VCT plc).

She subsequently became Managing Director of Matrix Private Equity before moving to take on a portfolio of Non-Executive Director roles in 2005. She is currently a Non-Executive Director of The Income & Growth VCT plc, Mobeus Income & Growth 4 VCT plc, British Smaller Companies VCT plc and North East Finance (Holdco) Ltd.  She was previously a Non-Executive Director of FTGS Holdco Limited. Helen was appointed to the board on 17 December 2009.

Ken Lever is a non-executive director of DACBeachcroft LLP, a legal firm specialising in insurance and property, a non-executive director of Vertu Motors plc (AIM listed Automotive Retailer) and FM International Limited (a wholly owned subsidiary of FM Global, property insurer). Ken recently stepped down from his role as Chief Executive of Xchanging plc and during his career has held listed company executive board positions with Tomkins plc, Albright and Wilson plc, Alfred McAlpine plc and private equity owned Numonyx BV.

In his early career Ken qualified as a Chartered Accountant and became a partner in Arthur Andersen. Until 2014 Ken was a member of the UK Accounting Standards Board. He graduated from Manchester University with a degree in Management Sciences.

CEO Tony is an experienced investor with over 20 years in the industry and has advised numerous public and private equity businesses. In December 2014, Tony became CEO of Gresham House and brought in a new management team that has transformed the company from an investment trust into an AIM listed specialist asset management group.

Tony started his career at Phillips & Drew Fund Management (later UBS Global Asset Management), one of the UK’s most prominent value investment firms with £60 billion in assets at its peak. He was a member of the UK Equity Investment Committee with responsibility for managing over £1.5bn of UK equities. Tony holds an MA in Management Studies from the University of Cambridge.

30 years VC & banking experience. Founded Spark in 1995. Former Investment Committee member at Brandt’s, Credit Suisse, Bank of Montreal and Mitsubishi Finance London. Start-up investor/director of lastminute.com, mergermarket.com, Chairman of Kobalt Music, notonthehighstreet.com, ARC, MAID, amongst others.

Bruce was appointed Chairman of the world’s leading insurance market, Lloyd’s of London, in June 2017 and is also Chairman of Moneysupermarket Group and a Vice Chairman of Banco Santander. He was a Non-Executive Director of JLT Group plc from 2016 to 2017, prior to which he was Non-Executive Chairman of Aon UK Ltd from 2012 to 2015, Senior Independent Director of Catlin Group Ltd from 2010 to 2014 and Chief Executive for Marsh UK and Europe from 2003 to 2006.

He was also a Senior Independent Director of Close Brothers Group plc from 2006 to 2014. He previously worked at JP Morgan for 18 years in a number of senior roles and was Managing Partner of 3i Group plc’s Quoted Private Equity Division from 2007 to 2009. He is President of the Chartered Management Institute.

Graham is experienced in fund management and in building both corporate advisory and asset management businesses. Prior to joining Gresham House in 2015, Graham spent six years as a senior executive at PayPoint plc, most recently as director of strategic planning and corporate development.

He was also executive chairman and president of PayByPhone, a multi-national division of PayPoint operating out of Canada, the UK and France between 2010-2014. Graham began his career in audit and corporate finance at Deloitte and Cazenove, and holds an MA in Economics from the University of Cambridge.

Ken is Managing Director, Public Equity, and leads the investment team managing public equity investments. He is lead manager for LF Gresham House UK Micro Cap Fund, LF Gresham House UK Multi Cap Income Fund and manages AIM listed portfolios on behalf of the Baronsmead VCTs. Ken graduated from Brasenose College, Oxford, before qualifying as a Chartered Accountant with KPMG. He was an equity research analyst with Commerzbank and then Evolution Securities prior to spending the past 12 years as a Fund Manager at Livingbridge and now Gresham House specialising in smaller companies.