Management of the fund

Cyril Demaria (Zurich)

Cyril Demaria is General Partner at Pilot Fish Ltd, which manages Pilot Fish funds. He is also Head of Private Markets at Wellershoff & Partners. Prior to that, he was Chief Investment Officer in charge of private market research at UBS Wealth Management in Zurich. Previously, he was Chief Investment Officer of Tiaré Investment Management AG, Associate at Adveq, Portfolio Manager at Maaf Gestion and Head of Corporate Development of Externall. He started at Pyramid Technology Ventures. He also advised the CEO of a French bank on strategic developments and is consulted as an expert by the EVCA, the AFIC and the SECA.

A French citizen, Cyril holds a BA in Political Sciences from the Institut d’Etudes Politiques (Lyon), Master in Geopolitics applied to Money and Finance (Paris), Master in European Business Law (Paris), Master Degree from HEC (Paris) and a Doctorate from University of St Gallen.

An Associate Professor at EDHEC (Nice), EADA (Barcelona) and ESCP-Europe (London) he lectures ‘Private Equity’. With more than 200 papers and articles published, he is a regular contributor in IP&E, Insights - The Economist, PE Hub, Revue Banque, Lettre Capital Finance, L’Agefi, Banque & Finance, Les Echos… He is regularly interviewed by BFM Business, Private Equity International, Private Debt Investor, Private Fund Management, and is a guest speaker in globally renowned conferences such as Capital Creation, and the SuperInvestor and SuperReturn Conferences.

Cyril Demaria has authored five books, of which four on private equity, notably the best seller Introduction to private equity (2nd edition, Wiley) translated in French (5th edition), Mandarin, Portuguese and Spanish; Private Equity Fund Investments (Palgrave) as well as Profession: business angels with Marc Fournier.

Investment Committee

Jean-Christel Trabarel (Paris)

is founder and CEO at Jasmin Capital, a private markets advisor. From 2004 to 2010, Jean-Christel was Partner at Advention Business Partners, a strategy consulting firm based in Paris, London, Munich, and Dubai. He has been involved in more than 100 strategic due diligences (enterprise value from €10 to €400 million) for private equity funds. He was Head of the sustainable development team.

Prior to joining Advention Business Partners, Jean-Christel worked five years as a consultant at Solving International and Pericles Consulting where he advised institutional investors -social welfare groups, pension funds, contingency funds, insurance companies and banks- on development and management strategy issues. He has also lead a think-tank on savings composed of a tenfold of institutional investors. Jean-Christel started his career at Alcan Pechiney and worked on cost cutting programs.

A French citizen, Jean-Christel is an engineer and holds a postgraduate certificate in Mathematical Economy from the Toulouse School of Economics. He is fluent in French and English.

Louis Perroy (Singapore)

Louis is currently freelancing in the sustainable development field. From 2004 to 2006, Louis was a Director at Climate Change Capital (London and Paris), a merchant bank specialized in climate change risks and in financing adaptation and mitigation to climate change. He was mostly involved in fund management and carbon finance activities. He teamed up with Ecosecurities, a specialist of Kyoto protocol mechanisms, to develop in France.

Louis was a Partner at Deloitte from 1999 to 2003. He set up the Asian operations for the actuarial practice. Hong Kong was used as a base, and branch offices were set up in Singapore, Malaysia, Taiwan, China and Korea. Having worked in Australia on renewable energy projects, he became a Partner of Deloitte France, heading the environmental team. Louis initially specialized in life insurance and worked as chief actuary and financial controller for French insurers UAP (AXA) and GAN (Groupama), in France, Hong Kong and the UK.

A French citizen and a permanent Hong Kong resident, Louis is a fellow of the Institute of Actuaries (UK) and an "actuaire qualifié de l'Institut des Actuaires" (FR). He holds an MSc in Environmental Science and Technology from Imperial College (London) and a Chinese language and business environment degree from the University of International Business and Economics (Beijing). Louis is fluent in French and English; and has a working knowledge of Mandarin.

Julien Desvergnes (Sao Paulo)

Julien is currently lauching a start-up in the financial sector. From 2009 to 2012, Julien was Head of Sales for Latin America for a financial markets software company. Prior to that, he was EMEA Sales Manager (Paris and Sao Paolo) in a software company dedicated to private equity and risk management, covering South America, Southern Europe and Turkey. Julien has initiated his career at Bureau Veritas (Paris), where he was in charge of various projects related to international development, in Africa and South America.

A French citizen, Julien holds a Diploma from HEC (Paris) and an MBA from DEUSTO (Spain). Julien is fluent in French, English, Spanish and has a working knowledge in Portuguese.

Xavier Gérardin (London)

Currently holding executive responsibilities at ION Trading, software editor in Finance, Xavier was previously Head of product strategy of the main division of GL Trade (globally EUR200 mn). GL Trade is a French trading software solution provider to the financial industry. The division provides tools for activities for brokerage front office. Over the course of the past eight years, Xavier has been appointed to different positions including the management of project, product and development teams linked to strategic investments. Prior to that, during three years, Xavier was part of a French telecom operator where he was doing Strategic Marketing research prior to worked on a CRM implementation.

A French citizen, Xavier holds an engineering degree in Mechanics from the Institut National des Sciences Appliquées (INSA, Lyon) and an MBA from HEC (Paris).

Chris Bourdeu (Paris)

Chris brings over 8 years of experience in financial planning and management. In his current role as a Transaction Services Manager within Deloitte’s Financial Advisory department, he has advised corporate clients and private equity funds in over 20 cross-border merger/acquisition transactions, in which he has analysed the quality of earnings and assets of potential acquisition targets.

He is also the founder of FinBee, an independent consultancy firm which specialises in innovative financing solutions for start-up and high-growth companies, with a specific focus on the ICT (Information & Communication Technology) sector. FinBee has successfully participated in raising funds for various businesses such as local business search engines, online travel agents and other internet and e-commerce startups.

A keen technology enthusiast, Chris holds a master’s degree in engineering from the French Ecole Centrale in Marseille (France), and a Master’s in European Business from ESCP-EAP, European School of Management. Of French and German descent, Chris is a native speaker of English, French and German, and speaks proficiently Spanish and Dutch.