Experience & Track Record

Investment Team

The investment team is led by Directors and Portfolio Managers Jonathan Pearce and Christian Jensen. Supporting them is Ethan Gill.

The team has a deep network resulting in access to a significant number of investment opportunities in growth-stage private and public companies. Members of the investment team are invested alongside unitholders, and they have material personal investment in the investment vehicles they manage.

Christian Jensen
Director, Portfolio Manager
B.Com, LLB, ICAA

Christian is an investment professional with over 20 years’ experience investing across a range of asset classes. After completing degrees in commerce and law at the University of Queensland he commenced his career with Ernst & Young and completed his qualification as a chartered accountant in 2000. He joined CVC Limited as an analyst in 2001 and worked primarily with private, expansion-stage companies. In 2007, he joined Macquarie Bank, and later a boutique global listed equities fund manager, Nanuk Asset Management before returning to CVC in 2014 to refocus on private, expansion-stage investments. Christian has experience as a director of a number of private and public companies.

JONATHAN PEARCE
Director, Portfolio Manager
B.Fin

Jonathan has worked in the finance industry for over 20 years, maintaining a focus on growth-stage investing in both public and private markets. He joined CVC in 2018 and with Christian Jensen led the Emerging Companies investment strategy for the firm. In late 2018, Jonathan and Christian established a separate entity for managing investments of this nature and in 2019 they raised their first wholesale investment fund. In addition to investing, Jonathan’s experience also includes the provision of corporate advisory services. Before joining CVC, Jonathan held senior roles at Blue Ocean Equities, Canaccord Genuity and Patersons Securities. Jonathan has experience as a director of several private and public companies.

ETHAN GILL
Investment Analyst
B.Com (Honour in Fin.)

Ethan has over 3 years of investment banking experience, starting as a graduate at Credit Suisse in the financial institutions and general industrials teams before moving to UBS as an Associate in the general industrials group. Ethan has worked on transactions across the banking, asset and wealth management, technology and industrials sectors. Ethan graduated from the University of Western Australia with a Bachelor of Commerce (Honours in Finance).

Anneke Senden photo
ANNEKE Senden
Investor Relations & Marketing
B.Com

Anneke has worked in the financial services industry, both in Australia and the UK, for more than 15 years and has held roles with BT Financial Group, Mercer, Legg Mason, and NAOS Asset Management. Prior to joining 248 Growth Partners, Anneke provided marketing services to asset management and wealth advisory businesses as a Consultant at PR and Marketing Communications consulting firm, The Continuum Partners.

James Warburton
Strategic Adviser
Boost Media International

James brings a wealth of knowledge and experience to the private equity landscape having held senior positions in Australia’s leading media, marketing and advertising organisations. Most recently, James was the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of Seven West Media. In this role, he transformed the business, repaired the company balance sheet and divested assets. As a strategic adviser, James will play a key role in identifying great businesses for investment and enhancing their performance to generate value for our investors.

Advisory Board

Andrew
Defina

Andrew has over 25 years’ experience in the finance industry. He has served as both a corporate adviser to large Australian corporates and as a senior executive of Pepperstone Group, the high growth financial services business. Andrew most recently was Chief Financial Officer of Pepperstone for 5 years. Pepperstone is a privately owned financial services business, specialising in retail trading in FX, commodities and other financial instruments. Andrew had overall responsibility for the global finance function and supported the founders and CEO in implementing the Group’s strategy. Andrew successfully managed Pepperstone during a period of significant growth, management change, offshore expansion and corporate activity (including private equity ownership). During his tenure as CFO, Pepperstone grew earnings (EBITDA) from approximately $20m to $150m and received various awards, including Australian Growth Company of the Year. Prior to this, Andrew held senior roles at leading global investment banks where he had over 20 years’ experience advising Australian companies on equity capital raisings (in particular IPOs) and M&A. His latest role was as Managing Director, Co-Head of Equity Capital Markets in Australia / NZ for UBS Investment Bank, where he advised on over 100 equity and equity-linked capital raisings across every industry sector with a total value of more than A$50 billion. Andrew is currently an investor in and consultant to a number of private companies.

Nikki
Warburton

Nikki has over 25 years’ experience in Senior Executive roles with a strong track record of delivering tangible business results across a range of industries from automotive, advertising to subscription TV. Nikki was most recently CCMO at Audi and is currently a Board Director of the GWS Giants and Executive Patron on the Taronga Zoo Foundation. Nikki was at AUDI for 3 years as the Chief Customer and Marketing Officer responsible for Marketing, Product, Digital, Corporate Communications and the Customer Operations Centre. In this time she built a high performing team who have collectively contributed to delivering strong brand health results and business growth in challenging times. She also led digital transformation for Audi and launched ecommerce capability including an online sales channel for the business. In her 11 years at AUSTAR she was part of the Executive team that took AUSTAR from a challenged business to a brand and business worth over $2B. This included building the customer base to over 750,000 customers. Whilst in this role her team was awarded with 8 ASTRA awards for most effective and outstanding consumer campaigns to drive sales, retention and community connection. In addition to her achievements the most important attribute of Nikki’s success is that the roles have been growth based with a direct correlation between strategy, execution and sales. In each role, Nikki has been instrumental in defining and building brands, digital transformation, designing a customer centric product or service, managing customer and advertising communication and shaping culture. Nikki is extremely passionate about building high performance teams and developing talent and is involved in a number of key mentoring programs.

MATT
Brown

Matt Brown has over 20 years’ experience as a senior executive, board member, advisor and investor. Matt is the Founder and Managing Director of Alluvion Capital, an independent investment and advisory firm focused on scale-up technology businesses. He is a director of four high-growth technology companies: Wisr Limited (an ASX-listed digital non-bank lender); EncompaaS Software Limited (an enterprise SaaS business); Thinxtra Limited (Internet-of-Things telco); and Upwire Pty Ltd (customer communications platform). Matt was formerly Chief Financial Officer and Executive Director of Livetiles (a high-growth, ASX-listed global SaaS business) and Divisional Director with Macquarie Capital in Sydney and New York. His experience spans across venture capital, private equity, mergers and acquisitions and capital raising transactions.

Dr Daryl
Holmes

Dr Daryl Holmes is the founder and former Managing Director of 1300SMILES, the first ASX-listed dental group in Australia which he grew to a network of more than 30 facilities across Queensland, Sydney and Adelaide. Daryl qualified as a dentist in 1987 at the University of Queensland and practised as a Dental Officer in the Royal Australian Air Force. Following these years, he operated multiple dental surgeries in the Townsville region before establishing the Townsville Family Dental brand and business model in 1991. For the next 12 years Dr Holmes pioneered and perfected a range of innovative marketing techniques for his dentistry business 1300SMILES before listing the business on the ASX in 2005. 1300SMILES was successfully sold to private equity-backed Abano Healthcare in 2021. Dr Holmes has extensive experience in operating dental practices and an intimate knowledge of the management, administrative and other support services required in a dental practice. Dr Holmes has been a Director, and Deputy Chairman, of the Cowboys Leagues Club and in June 2014 he was appointed Chairman. Dr Holmes also tirelessly volunteers on the YWAM (Youth with a Mission) Medical Ships providing much needed dental services, and training, in remote and rural Papua New Guinea. In 2018 Dr Holmes received an OBE at an investiture held at Buckingham Palace for services in P.N.G. with YWAM Ships.

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