Best Startup
At Best Startup UK we track over 130,000 UK startups and over 500,000 people who hold key positions in these companies. We use this directory of startups to highlight top employees, founders and board members we think deserve more appreciation than they are currently getting.
This list showcases the top United Kingdom based Managing Director operating in the Advice space. If you think a Managing Director is missing from this list, feel free to contact our editor on editor@beststartup.co.uk.
The individuals on this list have been included because of exceptional performance in one of the following categories:
- Innovation – Operating as a key part in an extremely innovative business or startup.
- Growth – Operating as a key figure in the growth and upscale of a market leading business or startup.
- Management – Showing exceptional management skills.
- Societal impact – Putting their business on the map for their positive societal or environmental impact.
Our Data – We source our data from OSINT (open source intelligence) and public directories such as Companies House UK, Crunchbase, SemRush and many more. The data from these sources should be treated with a degree of caution and verified yourself.
Lionel Assant
Senior Managing Director of Blackstone Group
Lionel Assant is Senior Managing Director and European Head of Private Equity for Blackstone, based in London. Since joining Blackstone in 2003, Lionel Assant has been involved in various European investments and investment opportunities. Before joining Blackstone, Lionel Assant worked for seven years at Goldman Sachs in the Mergers & Acquisitions, Asset Management and Private Equity divisions. Lionel Assant graduated from the Ecole Polytechnique with a Master’s degree in Economics. He serves as a Director of Tangerine, Intertrust and Alliance Automotive Group. Lionel Assant served on the boards of Gerresheimer, Mivisa and United Biscuits. He is also a Trustee of Impetus-PEF, a charitable foundation which provides resources to improve the lives of children and young people living in poverty.
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About Blackstone Group: Blackstone is an investment and advisory firm providing financial solutions for investors and clients.
Kenneth Caplan
Sr. Managing Director and Chief Investment Officer of Blackstone Group
Kenneth A. Caplan is a Senior Managing Director and Global Chief Investment Officer of the Real Estate Group. Since joining Blackstone in 1997, Kenneth Caplan has been involved in over $100 billion of real estate acquisitions and initiatives in the United States, Europe and Asia. These include major acquisitions such as Equity Office Properties, Hilton Hotels, Trizec Properties and La Quinta. Prior to his current role, Kenneth Caplan was Head of Real Estate Europe. Before joining Blackstone, he was at Lazard Frères & Co. in the real estate investment banking group. Kenneth Caplan received an A.B. in Economics from Harvard College, where he graduated magna cum laude, was elected to Phi Beta Kappa and was a John Harvard Scholar. He currently serves on the Board of Trustees of Prep for Prep.
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About Blackstone Group: Blackstone is an investment and advisory firm providing financial solutions for investors and clients.
Caroline Hill
Managing Director, Real Estate ESG of Blackstone Group
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About Blackstone Group: Blackstone is an investment and advisory firm providing financial solutions for investors and clients.
Nick Tansley
Managing Director of Blackstone Group
Nick Tansley is the Managing Director at PJT Partners.
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About Blackstone Group, PJT Partners: Blackstone is an investment and advisory firm providing financial solutions for investors and clients.
Osman Mardin
Managing Director of Sardis Capital
Managing Director at Sardis Capital
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About Sardis Capital: SARDIS is a regulated and independent advisory firm specialised in financial transactions
Nick James
Managing Director of Lazard
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About Lazard: Lazard is a financial advisory and asset management firm focused on income strategies, alternative investments, and private equity funds.
Jonathan Dawson
Managing Director of Lazard
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About Lazard: Lazard is a financial advisory and asset management firm focused on income strategies, alternative investments, and private equity funds.
Roy Vella
Managing Director/Founder of Vella Ventures
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About Vella Ventures: Vella Ventures is an executive consultancy delivering strategic advice and commercial services to digital leaders.
Will Curley
Managing Director of DIP
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About DIP: DIP is a global advisory that focuses on payments (credit, debit, infrastructure, and digital) and sales force management.
Matthew Whiting
Managing Director and Head of Financial Restructuring of G2 Capital Advisors
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About G2 Capital Advisors: G2 Capital Advisors provides executive led investment banking and advisory services to middle market institutional investors and companies.
Charlotte Bearn
Managing Director of Art Republic
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About Art Republic: Art Republic is an online store that provides artworks, gifts and magazines including art advice services.
José Francis
Founder and Managing Director of Hamilcar Capital Limited
José is an Investment Advisor. His main role is to screen the African market (Private and Listed Equity) to find the best investment opportunity on behalf of a consortium of selected investors Partner. José Solange Francis founded Hamilcar Capital Limited which is a regulated London Investment Boutique mainly dedicated for investment across the African continent. As a Principal Investment and Advisor Partner, he is surrounded with highly talented Expert Advisors. Mr J.S.Francis is global coordinator for deal sourcing, analysing and execution of direct equity investments. José brings to the growing business in Africa his 20 years’ extensive experience in financial markets on Equity and Derivatives products. He has a strong academic background in Finance and Economics. Prior to Hamilcar Capital Limited, he worked in London and Paris for well established financial institutions such as Paribas Asset Management, Natixis, Société Générale, GFI Group, Integra Capital. He covered different roles such as Fund Manager, Trader and Sales. Through his long experience, Mr J.S. Francis covered very large international institutions and also hedge fund clients by arranging deals on industrial participations and special situations. His responsibility was covering deals on IPO, Secondary Offerings, Block Trades, Repo Trade, Stocks Lending. He was also responsible for identifying attractive investment opportunities on equity event driven, M&A situations, distressed and restructuring stocks, large discounted stocks, managing equity and derivatives exposure. Mr J.S. Francis holds a Masters Specialized in Finance (ISG Business School, Paris) and a Bachelor degree in Economics, specializing in Mathematics and Statistics (University of Toulouse, France). Mr J.S. Francis is registered CF1 (Director) and CF30 (Customer) by the Financial Conduct Authority. He is trilingual in English, French (mother tongue) and Italian. He is currently learning Arabic. His motto “Never Give Up, just Carry On”
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About Hamilcar Capital Limited: Hamilcar Capital is an independent investment boutique focusing on private and listed equity in Africa, Europe and the Middle East.
Alberto Lopez Maganto
Managing Director of Akira Partners
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About Akira Partners: Akira Partners offers financial advice, merger and acquisitions services to telecom, media and technology sectors.
Julie Walker
Managing Director of BHIB Insurance Brokers
Julie’s passion is about looking after the customer, and focusing on our customers’ needs and requirements. She is experienced in all aspects of General Insurance from SME to Corporate clients, covering a wide range of industrial and commercial sectors. Her career began with Eagle Star Insurance Company in Nottingham as an office junior, and she has worked her way up to the position she holds with BHIB today.
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About BHIB Insurance Brokers: BHIB Insurance Brokers provides insurance brokerage services.
Joe Kim
Managing Director/Partner of UPIN Fund Management
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About UPIN Fund Management, XnTree: UPIN is an investment and management consulting firm that helps to optimize its clients’ business solutions and meet its goals.
Rachel Bridge
Founder and Managing Director of Froglet Productions
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About Froglet Productions: Froglet Productions is a consulting firm that provides digital and offline content, events and advice for all sizes of businesses.
Mark Lockie
Managing Director, Landmark Identity, Strategic Advisor, Science Media Partners of Landmark Identity
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About Landmark Identity: Landmark offers knowledge in the identity sector and offers marketing, events, community building, research and content services.
David Bellingham
Managing Director of HCF International Advisers
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About HCF International Advisers, MINEXIA: HCF International Advisers is an investment firm that focuses on global natural resources and infrastructure sectors.
David Bellingham
Managing Director of HCF International Advisers
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About HCF International Advisers, MINEXIA: HCF International Advisers is an investment firm that focuses on global natural resources and infrastructure sectors.
Benoit Reillier
Managing Director of Launchworks & Co
Launchworks Ventures’ Managing Director, Benoit Reillier, specialises in strategy, training and innovative business models and ecosystems such as multisided platforms. He has been advising the boards and top management teams of many blue chip companies as well as regulators and Governments for the past 20 years. Prior to founding Launchworks Benoit was Director of Economics and Regulation at KPMG where he focused on strategic assignments for Telecommunications, Media and Technology clients globally. Benoit was previously Director of the TMT practice of expert firm LECG Europe (now FTI) and also worked as business development director of Telia Mobile International UK, the leading Nordic telecommunications group. Throughout his career Benoit has had the opportunity to work on and lead key strategic assignments that shaped the communications sector. He was instrumental in the development of regulatory frameworks in a number of countries and participated in large scale strategic assignments leading to the separation (or merger) of activities. Benoit also provided expert advice in the context of several multi billion dollar litigations and arbitrations. Benoit started his career under the aegis of the French government as a special advisor on telecom-related issues and was part of the team preparing the liberalisation of the French telecom sector in the 1990’s.
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About Launchworks & Co: Launchworks provide strategy and innovation advisory services to companies of any size.
Steve Laurenson
Managing Director of Laurensons Consulting
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About Laurensons Consulting: Laurensons Consulting offers consulting services to mobile comms and semiconductor industries.
