investment Team | SME venture capital investment in the West Midlands

The Team

Board of Directors
	Tony Stott Tony joined Midven in 1998 and has completed over 40 investments. He was appointed Chief Executive in 2006. He is a chartered accountant training with Deloitte & Touche in Birmingham and specialising in advisory services to small and medium sized companies. He left Deloitte & Touche in 1992 and worked in the finance departments of two Birmingham based businesses, one a management buy-in backed by NatWest Ventures and the other an entrepreneurial business backed by business angels. He has a degree in Economics with Politics from Manchester University.

	Roger Wood Roger joined Midven in June 2004. He is a Director of the Company and Investment Director of the Advantage Growth Fund. He trained as a Chartered Accountant with Price Waterhouse. Following a secondment into their Corporate Finance department he spent 7 years as a Corporate Finance adviser with Ernst & Young and Bentley Jennison, focusing on small and medium sized private company transactions. Roger has a degree in Industrial Economics from Nottingham University.

	Andrew Muir Andrew joined Midven in 2004. He is a Director of the Company and Investment Director of the Rainbow Seed Fund, focusing on the life sciences. After an initial scientific career at Zeneca he went on to be a research manager at Biocompatibles and then Vice President of Technology for a US medical device start-up. Most recently, he was Programme Manager for life sciences in the £4m per annum Invention and Innovation seed capital fund at NESTA (the National Endowment for Science Technology and the Arts). He has a degree and a PhD in Chemistry from the University of Oxford.

	Brian Blakemore Brian joined Midven as a Non-Executive Chairman during 2009. He has had a career spanning 40 years in the banking and investment industries, mostly within the West Midlands. Brian was recently with Barclays Private Equity whom he joined in 1989 to open their first regional office in the UK, located in Birmingham. Brian became a director in 1998 and was a member of the UK Executive Committee. After leading the Barclays Private Equity Midlands Team for over ten years, Brian was appointed Investor Relations Director in December 2000. Brian was a key part of the team which very successfully raised the firms first 3 funds; the €1.25 billion Barclays Private Equity European Fund in 2002, the €1.65 billion Barclays Private Equity European Fund ll in 2005 and the €2.45 billion Barclays Private Equity European Fund lll in 2007. Brian retired from Barclays Private Equity in September 2008 and as well as his involvement with Midven is engaged in various consulting projects and training. Brian is an Associate of the Chartered Institute of Bankers

	Julie Newman Julie joined Midven as a Executive Director during 2009. She has spent her 19 year venture capital career specialising in early stage, technology investing. Julie's early career was in operational research with British Gas plc before being seconded to a venture capital fund manager investing a corporate venturing fund on behalf of British Gas. She subsequently co-founded Strathdon Investments Ltd, a specialist technology fund manager, which she helped to grow from start-up in 1998 to an AIM listing in 2004. Julie is an experienced non-executive director and is currently on the board of an IT solutions business.

Investment Team
	Nicholas Moate Nick joined Midven as an Investment Manager on the Advantage Growth Fund in 2003. He is a Chartered Accountant and has spent over 20 years working with small and medium sized companies . With Robson Rhodes he was a Corporate Finance Manager finding equity and loan funding for clients. Nick worked for 3i for 12 years in their Leicester, Birmingham and Leeds offices, latterly as an Investment Director. More recently he worked for Business Link South Yorkshire, finding Business Angel funding for his clients. He has a degree in Economics from Reading University.

	Surjit Kooner Surjit joined Midven in August 2005 as Investment Manager of the Advantage Growth Fund. He is a Chartered Accountant with over eleven years experience of advising small and medium sized private companies, particularly in the area of fund raising. Surjit trained with Arthur Andersen, specialising in corporate finance. Following a 12 month secondment to ISIS Equity Partners in 2002 he joined Deloitte Corporate Finance in January 2003. Surjit has a degree in Economics and Finance from Brunel University and a Masters in Corporate Strategy & Governance from Nottingham University.

	Mark White Mark joined Midven in August 2006 and works on the Rainbow Seed Fund. He has over twenty years experience in investment with extensive periods in UK investment banking and emerging markets, including raising and managing a R100m fund in South Africa. Most recently, he led the transformation of NESTA's investment operations, building it into the most active technology seed investor in the UK. He holds an MBA from London Business School.

	Lamia Baker Lamia is an Investment Manager on the Rainbow Seed Fund and joined Midven in 2008, following ten years working in technology start-up companies. She was responsible for developing and bringing to production optical devices and systems for telecoms applications in three companies in Boston (USA) that were subsequently acquired by major telecoms firms. Lamia has a degree in Physics from the University of Montpellier (France), an MSc in Optics from the University of Rennes (France) and is studying for a PhD in telecommunications from University College London.

	Duncan Kerr Duncan was recruited by Midven in 2009 as Investment Director on the Early Advantage fund. Duncan has both investment and operational experience across a range of technology businesses. His most recent roles were chief executive positions with pre-revenue and early-stage businesses developing novel intellectual property. Prior to this he managed a £30m technology investment portfolio on behalf of a FTSE 350 property and investment group. He has a PhD from Cambridge University in Theoretical Solid State Physics and an undergraduate degree in Physics from the University of Kwa-Zulu Natal in South Africa.

	Larraine Heath Larraine joined the Midven team in 2008 as Administration Manager. She has over 15 years experience of the finance sector having previously worked for a loan company and retail bank. She has also worked in customer relations management in the telecoms and service sectors. She is responsible for all aspects of day to day administration and office management.

	John Slaughter John joined Midven in 2009 as an Analyst supporting the investment team in their day to day portfolio management responsibilities. In his own time he is studying for a Chartered Management Institute Certificate in Management. John has a degree in Business Economics and Finance from Loughborough University.