The Team

James Wakefield

Chairman, James is an experienced private equity investor having spent over 20 years in the industry, most recently with Bridgepoint Capital (formerly NatWest Equity Partners). During this time he has acted as Non Executive Director or Chairman to over 20 companies across a wide variety of sectors and at varying points in their development. James now acts as a director and senior advisor to a number of businesses, many of which are in the financial services sector.

 

Guy Davies

CEO, Guy is an experienced private equity investor, previously with Pi Capital - a leading high net worth funded private equity company and HSBC Private Equity, now Montague Private Equity. He has also invested personally in a number of earlier stage companies. Guy also worked for Deloitte as an Associate Partner in the corporate finance department, where he started and led their German private equity corporate finance advisory business and was also a key member of the London based large buy-out advisory team. Guy is a chartered accountant and a graduate of Accounting and Finance from Warwick University.

 

Valerie Kendall

Director,Valerie joined WFM from 3i, having spent 11 years in their UK private equity business. She is an experienced investor, who has completed more than 30 transactions, including MBOs, growth capital and infrastructure deals. She has also worked at every stage in the transaction process, from negotiating new transactions to delivering successful exits. Prior to her developing her career at 3i, she spent 4 years at HSBC encompassing corporate finance, fund management and private equity roles. Valerie is a chartered banker, and holds an honours degree in business studies.

 

 

Richard Harbottle

Director. Richard was WFM’s Founding Managing Director and has extensive experience of making investments not only in Wales, but in many parts of the world, and has made over sixty investments during his career as a venture capitalist. Following the sale of WFM to Merchant Ventures Investments, Richard now acts as a consultant to WFM.