Our people

James Witter joined SVG Advisers as a director in 2007. He works on the management of existing fund vehicles and developing new products and investment solutions for institutional clients and General Partners. James has over 20 years experience within the debt and equity capital markets, having held senior positions at Merrill Lynch, Dresdner Kleinwort Benson and most recently at Nomura where he was Head of Private Equity Capital Markets before becoming Head of UK and Ireland, Global Markets Europe. James has an MBA from the London Business School and graduated with an MA in Natural Sciences from St Catharine’s College, Cambridge

Jamie joined SVG Investment Managers in 2004 as an Investment Manager. Prior to joining, he was a fund manager at Rothschild Asset Management (RAM). While at RAM, he was a member of the European equity team and helped manage £0.5 billion of Pan-European equities. Jamie is a CFA charterholder and a member of the CFA Institute. He has a degree in Economics and Business Economics from Southampton University.

Jan Astrand is Chairman of CAR Park Group AB - Scandinavia’s biggest car park operator and a senior independent director at Northgate Plc, a quoted transport company. Jan is also a senior director of PHS Group Plc, a quoted support services company sold to Charterhouse.

Jeff joined SVG Investment Managers in January 2012 as an analyst. Prior to joining, Jeff worked within the Transaction Services team at PricewaterhouseCoopers performing financial due diligence on private equity and corporate transactions. Following this, he worked at Macquarie as a European Banks Analyst. He has a First in Political Science from the University of Birmingham and holds the ACA qualification.

John Hodson joined Singer & Friedlander Limited in 1969, he became a director in 1984 and in 1993, he was appointed chief executive of Singer & Friedlander Group PLC. From 2000 to 2003 he served both as chairman and chief executive of the Group. He is also chairman of Cenkos Securities plc and UBC Media Group plc, and a director of Domino’s UK & IRL plc.

John Cornish was formerly an audit partner at Deloitte & Touche where he led the firm’s investment trust team until his retirement in 2004. He is currently a Director of Framlington Innovative Growth Trust PLC and Finsbury Technology Trust PLC.

Jonathan became Chairman of SVG Investment Managers in March 2011 having been appointed a director in July 2008. Prior to this he was on the Board of Strategic Equity Capital. He is also currently a member of the Board of Churchill China plc, Chairman of SVG Capital’s Investment Committee and Chairman of the SVG Asia Fund of Funds Advisory Committee. He started his career with 3i Group before joining the Prudential’s London based private equity business in 1985. He became Managing Director of the business in 1995, then a single office in London, and developed the business into Europe and Asia Pacific. He was also Chairman of the investment committee responsible for investing over £1 billion in Europe and $330 million in Asia Pacific. He has over 30 years experience in private equity.

Katherine Coates joined SVG Advisers in 1997 and is the HR Administrator. She is responsible for providing HR support to the Head of HR and the Company. She has also worked as PA to the Head of Legal and Legal Team Assistant. Prior to this, Katherine worked as PA to the Managing Director of the Turner & Townsend Group.

Kay Thong joined SVG Advisers in 2008 as a Business Analyst/Developer. Prior to joining SVG, he worked for MarketAxess Europe Ltd, which provides a web-based trading platform for credit products. Prior to this Kay worked within the IT division of Abbey plc. He has a BSc Hons degree in Genetics and Microbiology from Queen Mary, University of London.

Ken Minton has led successful turnarounds within a number of UK publicly listed companies. He is former Executive Chairman of 4imprint Group plc, former Executive Chairman of Arjo Wiggins Appleton plc, former Chief Executive Officer of Laporte plc, former Non-Executive Director of Tomkins plc, Solvay SA, Elementis plc and former Non-Executive Chairman of Mowlem plc.