The Team

Seonaid Mackenzie, is the Founder of award winning Sturgeon Ventures as of 1998 which began as a single family office, incubating companies and firms from that day – known as the Venture Catalyst. Sturgeon Ventures moved into the specialty of incubating Financial Services firms as well as individuals and in 2001 pioneered “Regulatory Incubation” for the first time as individuals became approved persons, under the Financial Services Authority migrating from The SFA and IMRO now the Financial Conduct Authority.

 Seonaid is a Portfolio Manager, is on the Investment Committees and is on the Finance and Management Committee.

Seonaid’s career in financial services started in 1983 spanning the early years as a US Equity Institutional Stockbroker at well-known firms to launching the first paid independent research product in the UK in 1995, which was paid out of CSA to a corporate finance advisor, pre and post Sturgeon leading a number of transactions.

Seonaid has advised and managed numerous family office portfolios personally and has been involved in numerous investment committees to date, whilst also being a member of Fund Boards on and offshore.

Seonaid is a genuine out of the box thinker. Outside of her busy work schedule, she mentors and is a frequent speaker in schools on subjects including the journey of a female entrepreneur and looks after Sandy, the family Spaniel.

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Tom joined Sturgeon in 2011, is the Chief Operating Officer and and a member of the Compliance & Risk Committee. A qualified Chartered Accountant, Tom previously was a co-founder of an investment management firm building it into a multi fund and multi manager business before resigning to take a sabbatical and then join Sturgeon. Stella, his Working Cocker Spaniel, takes up a lot of spare time.

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Sarah is a Designated Member of the Partnership, a member of the Compliance and Risk Committee, Internal Counsel and Chief Compliance Officer for Sturgeon Ventures, and together with Seonaid Mackenzie sits as a member of the Management Committee and in most closed ended fund committees. Following an English degree at Oxford, Sarah qualified as a solicitor, joining Clifford Chance’s investment funds department, her time there including a year in Man Group’s derivative funds team in Switzerland. Sarah then spent eleven years at ING Group, first as a trading floor lawyer, then in the capital markets team, becoming head of debt capital markets for Russia and the CIS. Before joining Sturgeon in 2016, Sarah worked for five years at the Pemberton funds group as an inhouse legal and compliance advisor.

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Becky Neill is the Compliance Manager and a member of the Compliance and Risk Committee, with the compliance analysts reporting to her. She is responsible specifically for the monitoring of the Appointed Representative Firms within Sturgeon as well as general compliance support. Becky has over 15 years compliance experience previously working in Japanese and German Investment Banks in the city.

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Robin is a Senior Compliance Analyst and an Associate Member of CISI working to obtain Chartered Membership. He has over 18 years experience in the Finance industry in a variety of Compliance, Testing and Control roles. He is a former ski instructor who enjoys climbing (mostly indoors at the moment) and watching various sports.

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Terri is a Compliance Analyst. Terri is a member of the compliance team active in the monitoring of the Appointed Representative Firms within Sturgeon, assisting with SM&CR training, as well as general compliance support. Terri has over 20 years compliance experience and over 35 years industry experience having previously worked at an investment bank, an investment management firm and has been a secondee at the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA).

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Stephen joined the team in 2017 and is responsible for the risk monitoring of the Portfolios managed by Sturgeon. Having gained over 20 years of experience on both the buy and sell sides of the market, working within some of the largest banks and systematic hedge funds in London. He has held senior positions within both trading teams, portfolio risk and operational risk committees during his career.

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Stephanie is a Senior Compliance Analyst and a member of the Portfolio Management Oversight team. She has over 5 years’ experience in Compliance, leading on Financial Promotions for the firm, and over 25 years industry experience having previously managed international fixed income and currencies for institutional portfolios. She has a degree in Economics and in her spare time, she walks Howard the spaniel, plays tennis and practices yoga.

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James joined Sturgeon Ventures in 2019 into the Special Projects Team reporting to the Managing Partners having gained over 10 years’ experience on the sell-side and buy-side, whilst holding Chief Operating / Executive / Financial Officer positions for numerous European hedge fund launches and capital market roles, within large UK institutional banks. In his spare time he provides football coaching, enjoys reading Greek mythology, walking his black Labrador Teos and has launched an organic dog food company.

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Daniela is part of Sturgeon’s Special Projects Team. Daneila works with the Senior Management of the Firm co-ordinating and leading special projects. Daniela joined Sturgeon in 2019, from a boutique corporate finance firm, bringing over 15 years’ experience working with high net worth individuals and family offices.

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Joe joined Sturgeon Ventures in 2021 as an Operations Special Projects Analyst having gained a degree in Financial Mathematics. In his spare time, he enjoys playing football and basketball as well as exploring new parts of the countryside with his dog Trooper.

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Alex Brown, Senior Marketing Associate, is the longest standing member of the current team, having joined Sturgeon in 2008 as Seonaid’s Executive PA. Alex came to Sturgeon from Goldman Sachs, where she was the Assistant to two Senior Partners. She has had many roles throughout her tenure at Sturgeon, embracing our marketing role five years ago. Her activities include the co-ordination of new enquiries, liaising with the Sturgeon on-boarding team, through to the approvals of all new approved persons as they become fully embedded into the Sturgeon incubation journey. Alongside this, Alex also runs Seonaid’s busy work schedule.
Alex loves a challenge and spearheads Sturgeon’s volunteering and charity events, most recently, a 26 mile sponsored walk and Ride the Night.

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Kirsten Bedford is an Executive Assistant to Seonaid as well as being responsible for managing all internal Senior Management and Committee meetings, and supporting Seonaid on internal projects.
Kirsten has over 15 years’ experience, having supported a number of UHNWIs in all aspects of their personal and professional lives, across a range of industries with interests spanning Politics, PR, Fashion, Retail, Philanthropy, Real Estate and Finance. Kirsten joins Sturgeon from an UHNW Single Family Office, where she was the Executive Assistant to the Principal.

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Liz, through TPG Design, started working with Sturgeon in 2013 and looks after their digital comms, including the website content, SEO and social media. In her spare time she is a very amateur runner and volunteers with the Wardrobe Team at Hampton Theatre sewing costumes for their productions.

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Partner, member of the Finance and the Management Committee of Sturgeon Ventures. Andrew Haggard has been working with Sturgeon Ventures for 14 years, and became acquainted with the firm when Peter Crowther merged his business with Haggards. Andrew’s background was as an entrepreneur and now as an Accountant for entrepreneurs

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Paul is a Non-Executive Advisor to Sturgeon Ventures; sitting on our Executive Management Committee. A PwC qualified accountant; Paul has over 30 years investment experience working primarily in the funds industry with Rothschild and Fidelity Investments, where Paul was a Managing Director From 1987-90. In 1991, Paul founded the Forsyth Partners Group, a multi-manager research and investment firm that managed almost USD 2 billion of assets which was sold in 2013. Paul has regularly chaired and presented papers at investment conferences around the world and has featured as a commentator on BBC World and CNBC.

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Damien is a member of the Investment Committee as a Portfolio Manager for Illiquid Equity Investments in Sports and Wellbeing Sectors.

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Andy is a member of the Investment Committee as a Portfolio Manager for Illiquid Equity Investments in Sports and Wellbeing Sectors.

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I love the detail that others shy away from. A member of the Investment Committee as a Portfolio Manager for Illiquid Real Estate Investments.

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Nigel is a Corporate Finance Advisor with 20 years’ experience in the IT technology industry as an operating executive. 20 years’ experience as Managing Partner of venture capital funds within Intel Ventures and Doughty Hanson investing and managing over $700m into 70 start-up companies across Europe. Significant experience in company financing, raising and managing VC funds, advising on business strategy and building high-performance management teams.

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Aman Oberoi is a Designated Portfolio Manager in Sturgeon for a Quant Directional Japanese Equity macro strategy. Aman has been trading Japanese equities in various capacities since 1989, including establishing and running Citibank’s Japanese Equity derivatives business. In his most recent position, he was a Senior MD and member of the Executive Committee at Mizuho International Plc, London. He has a B. S. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from Duke University and an MBA from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Oscar, his Scottish working Golden Retriever keeps his feet warm when he is not walking with him in the Heath.

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Ed is a member of the Investment Committee as a Portfolio Manager for Technology Growth Investments.

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Nick is a member of the Investment Committee and a Portfolio Manager for an Impact Technology fund. He launched his investment career as a serial Fintech Founder and has led multimillion-pound investment rounds from Seed to Series A for award-winning ventures. A passionate activator with a natural anticipation of a better tomorrow, Nick focuses on the exceptional people who will define our future, through innovation, a strong social consciousness, and the creation of forward- thinking projects.

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