The Imperial Private Equity Club Advisory Board features a diverse group of both industry and academic professionals . With backgrounds including Leverage Finance, Private Equity, Infrastructure Finance, and Venture Capital, the Board provides well-rounded insights that help the club deliver top quality programming along with career guidance and industry insights.
ACADEMIC
Andreas T. Angelopoulos
Chairman, Advisory Board, PE Club
Adjunct Professor
Private Equity Venture Capital & Entrepreneurship
Finance Group
Imperial College London
Andreas is lecturing as an Adjunct Professor of Private Equity, Venture Capital and Entrepreneurship at the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business, in Chicago (2008 – 2009), at Imperial College Business School in London, and at Luiss Business School in Rome from 2006.
In 2008, he founded the annual PE VC E | Guest Speakers Programme at Imperial College developing and presenting real cases & market trends in various investment sectors, together, with more than 23 executives from the venture capital, private equity and industry sector.
Andreas has more than 18 years of experience in private equity, entrepreneurship and engineering advising, parallel, various UK based funds and entrepreneurs or corporates in their investment plans in SE Europe. He worked with Dresdner Kleinwort Benson’s principal finance and venture capital groups investing in USA and Europe and with Commercial Capital investing in growth capital in SE Europe. He started his career in the area of engineering, real estate and infrastructure, working with Bechtel, Dames & Moore and Hochtief – ABB J/V in USA and Europe.
Andreas holds an MBA from The University of Chicago, a MSc from the School of Engineering at Columbia University and a graduate degree, Diploma in Civil Engineering, from the School of Engineering at the University of Patras, in Greece. Andreas was born and raised in Greece.
Bart Clarysse
Chair in Entrepreneurship
Innovation & Entrepreneurship Group
Imperial College London
Bart joined the Business School’s Entrepreneurship Hub in 2007 from Nottingham University business school and Vlerick Leuven Gent Management School where he taught innovation and technology management, entrepreneurial marketing and entrepreneurship. He is a founder of several high tech start-ups in businesses such as digital cinema, mobile internet and venture incubation.
Following his Phd studies, Bart was an advisor in technology policy at the European Commission and he still consults on innovation and technology matters for various European governments and agencies. He is founding partner of Inceptum, a company that offers support to build a business plan out of an initial idea; and he sits on the board of Siruna, a mobile internet start-up. He also is an advisor in innovation policy to the Flemish Government, the Belgian Government and European Commission. He has over 50 publications in the field of high tech start-ups and managing growth of these companies and has been an executive teacher for several multinationals such as KLM, Belgacom, Recticel, USG People, Johnson&Johnson in corporate venturing and innovative turnaround strategies.
His on-going research interests include the analysis of acquisition decisions by established companies to enter new technological domain or adjacent markets. He analysis the growth strategies of technology ventures in adjacent markets and the valuation patterns of these ventures.
VENTURE CAPITAL FINANCE
Aris Constantinidis
Founder & Managing Director, NBG Ventures, London
Aris is the founder and Investment Director of NBGI Ventures, responsible for its overall strategy and management, and leads its presence in the medical technology sector.
Aris established NBGI Ventures in 2001, following five years in venture capital with Deutsche Bank’s venture capital team and CSFB’s Cabot Square Capital fund. He started his career at Bankers Trust as a derivatives specialist.
Aris holds a Bachelor in Engineering from Imperial College, a Master of Science from MIT in Mechanical Engineering and an MBA from INSEAD. Aris was born and raised in Athens, Greece.
VENTURE CAPITAL FINANCE - SEED AND STARTUP STAGE
Robert Bahns
Investments Director, Imperial Innovations
Robert has over twenty years experience in industry and finance. Previously, he was a director in the technology investment team at Nomura International plc where he led investments in the semiconductor and wireless space.
He is trained as an electronics engineer and worked in Japan for Pioneer Electronics, both in R&D and in the establishment of the company’s first UK manufacturing facility. Robert has an MBA from Insead and an Electrical Sciences degree from Cambridge University.
LEVERAGE FINANCE
Elias Sakelis
Executive Director, Leverage Finance, Goldman Sachs, London
Elias is an Executive Director in Leveraged Finance at Goldman Sachs, within the Financing Group. He joined Goldman Sachs in 2000.
Elias focuses on originating, structuring, executing, and syndicating corporate, leveraged, and private financings and refinancings. He is also manages stressed and distressed special situations, recapitalisations, and full balance sheet restructurings. In 2007, Elias served as Business Unit Manager for the firm’s Leveraged Finance, Financial Sponsors, Equity Capital Markets, and Equity Derivatives businesses in Europe.
Previously, Elias worked in the firm’s Equities business underwriting and distributing IPOs, marketed secondary offerings, block trades, and rescue rights issues. Elias also lead the coverage and relationship management of some of the firm’s largest institutional investors in Europe
Prior to joining Goldman Sachs, Elias spent one year at Lehman Brothers in London. He received a Master in finance and a Bachelor in Engineering from Imperial College London and and MBA from INSEAD. Elias born and raised in Athens, Greece.
Tiago Dias
Leverage Finance, Goldman Sachs, London
Tiago is currently working in the Leverage Finance team at Goldman Sachs in London. Previously roles include at Rothschild’s M&A Healthcare team and Société Générale’s TMT Leverage Finance team in London.
He started his career as an Engineer in Telecommunications in Portugal.
Taigo received a Master of Science in Finance from Imperial College Business School and a 5 year graduate degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering (with a specialization in Telecommunications) from Instituto Superior Técnico (Lisbon). He was born and raised in Lisbon, Portugal.
PRIVATE EQUITY – INDIA
Vidur Gupta
Vidur Gupta, IDFC Project Equity, Infrastructure Fund, Mumbai, India
Vidur is currently working in the Investment team at IDFC Project Equity in Mumbai which manages a $ 927Mn infrastructure fund focused on India and is lead sponsored by IDFC and Citigroup.
Previously he worked in the investment team of private equity Fund of Funds SVG Capital Plc. in London and also with the global energy group TOTAL SA in India where he managed TOTAL’s investment from the financial, strategy and marketing perspective in conventional and non conventional energy and infrastructure.
Vidur received his MBA from Imperial College in 2010 and a Masters in Finance from Lancaster University.
ACADEMIC
Dr. Itxaso del Palacio
Dr. Itxaso del Palacio is an academic entrepreneur passionate for supporting students while setting up their own companies and for helping start-ups in London getting access to the university talent. As a Teaching Fellow in Entrepreneurship at University College London (UCL), Itxaso teaches Entrepreneurial Finance and mentors students creating, testing, pivoting and iterating using their MVP. Through the Mastering your Start-Up program Itxaso is helping students at the MSc in Technology Entrepreneurship developing their dissertations in collaborations with start-ups and entrepreneurs of the London Tech City. Itxaso is also the founder of smartinterns.co.uk which aims to help start-ups hire talent from universities.
In the past, Itxaso has worked with entrepreneurs at Imperial College London and in UC Berkeley where she spent sometime developing her PhD about Venture Capital. During her stay in Silicon Valley, she also worked in business development for the 22@Barcelona urban-technology park, and helped Spanish companies launching in the States.
Her main area of research is on venture capital and clusters of innovation, and she has published papers in journals such as the California Management Review and the Small Business Economics.