Directors

Perry Wilson

Chairman

Perry Wilson is a financial services professional with over 25 years’ experience in investment banking and fund management, responsible for running portfolio risk positions in global markets. He started his career in accountancy before joining the asset trading group at Lazard in 1987, focusing on illiquid credit and structured products and going on to become a director of the bank.

In 2003 Mr Wilson joined Argo Capital as executive director, an AIM listed alternative investment fund management firm and was part of a small team of portfolio managers that oversaw the group’s fiftyfold AUM growth to US$1.3bn at it’s height. After leaving Argo in 2010 Mr Wilson joined Integra Capital to implement a liquid credit strategy before setting up a fixed income sales and trading operation for a Central Asian investment bank, Visor Capital in 2013.

Since 2015 Mr Wilson has been on the board of a number of UK and offshore financial services firms and investment funds, as independent non-executive director, and also acts as chair of trustees for a UK pension plan, providing corporate governance and oversight utilising his extensive financial markets background and experience

St. John Agnew

St.John trained as a solicitor and was an in-house Commercial and Banking Counsel for TSB Bank. His responsibilities included drafting and negotiating legal documentation in relation to all Bank lending and commercial arrangements. This included many types of commercial contracts and involved a close working relationship with the technology team who required advise on a steady flow of technology contracts.

He became a Investment Manager in 2000 and set up a fund in the Cayman Islands in 2004 based on Technical Analysis which he successfully operated and closed in late 2007. He continues to advise on investment and is currently an Investment Manager registered with Credo Capital with his own private clients.

St.John has also served as Trustee on a Pension fund for a Charity and, using his legal and investment knowledge, he helped to restructure the Board to allow it to recognise and meet its extensive ongoing Pension obligations. He is also currently a Non-Executive Director of a food company, The Big Prawn Company, where uses his knowledge and experience to help guide this company.

Gareth Burchell

Gareth Burchell began his career in the insurance industry and spent three years at RBS Insurance prior to beginning his career in investment advice and management. Mr. Burchell is currently Head of Shard Capital Stockbrokers and chairs an investment committee that specialises in providing funding for both listed and unlisted small companies. Gareth has had a focus on the small cap arena for 15 years and he and his team have provided £90 million of funding across 221 companies. He has an in-depth knowledge of the UK listing process of various small cap exchanges.

AIFM MANAGEMENT

Barry Downes

CIO of Sure Ventures PLC and Managing Partner Suir Valley Ventures.

Barry Downes is the CIO of Sure Ventures PLC and Managing Partner of Suir Valley Ventures. Barry is also Chairman of TSSG (previous CEO), a leading technology Research Institute, Incubator and Accelerator which has raised over €90 million to date. Previously Barry founded FeedHenry Limited, a mobile cloud software technology company that was acquired in 2014 by RedHat Inc (NYSE:RHT). Barry has worked extensively in Silicon Valley as a Partner of SVG Partners, a San Francisco based investment and advisory firm that helps its clients with innovation, strategy and technology consulting. Barry started his career in software with Infinium Inc in Hyannis, MA and prior to joining TSSG, Barry was the Vice President of Software Services for Waterford Technologies a leading provider of cloud software, headquartered Waterford, Ireland and in Orange County, California. Barry holds an MBA from Smurfit Business School UCD, a BSc in Applied Computing from WIT and has executive qualifications from Haas School of Business at the University of California Berkeley (in Venture Capital), Henley Business School and also Harvard Law School. Barry is also a Certified Investment Fund Director (CIFD) from the Institute of Banking. Barry was recently named one of the top software superstars by Silicon Republic.

Brian Kinane

Brian Kinane is an experienced industry software executive, tech entrepreneur and investment manager. Brian has extensive corporate technology experience from his product management roles at global telecom companies such as Ericsson Group and Telenor Group. Additionally, Brian has deep operational experience from being a founding shareholder and board director of a number of high tech start-ups backed by international VCs including FeedHenry where he worked with Barry Downes. Finally Brian has had a successful track record as a hedge fund growth capital investment manager funding over 60 companies. Education includes BA Mod Computer Science from Trinity College Dublin and MBAs London and Columbia Business Schools.

Toby Raincock

Toby Raincock is the CEO at Shard Capital Partners. Toby has over 20 years experience in Finance. Prior to joining Shard Capital Toby was Director, Head of CASS Operations Regulatory Control at Barclays Capital. Previously he was the Chief Operating Officer of Evolution Securities, a regulated financial services company (part of the Evolution Group plc) where he spent nearly eight years, initially as Financial Controller. He has also worked at Schroders and qualified as an auditor from KPMG in 2001. Toby is a member of the Great Britain Rifle Team, most recently successful in their third consecutive defence of the Palma World Championships held in Camp Perry, USA in 2015.

James Lewis

James Lewis is the Founder and former Managing Partner of Shard Capital Partners and Owner of Rubrics Asset Management. Group AUM exceeds Euro 1.1 billion. Prior to entering the Asset Management sector, he expanded a boutique Dutch brokerage from a handful of staff in Amsterdam to a diversified brokerage company with over 150 personnel spread across 9 countries, transacting deals covering a wide range of financial instruments including high grade/ high yield fixed income and loans, structured products, and exchanged traded equities. With steady organic growth over the last 5 years Shard now operates several teams of high quality executives executing fixed income, stockbroking and direct lending strategies, combined with a strong focus on the client driven business.