The Team

Jeremy Barnes

Director. Jeremy is CEO of WFM's sister company Orbis Capital. Jeremy was previously Managing Director of XL Financial Solutions in London where he led a specialist team that structured and arranged insurance risk transfer deals. Prior to this Jeremy was Director of Corporate Finance at British Aerospace. Jeremy also spent nine years at Citicorp and specialised in leveraged finance, structured finance and buy-outs.

 

Guy Davies

Head of Investments, Guy is an experienced private equity investor, previously with Pi Capital - a leading high net worth funded private equity company - where he was a senior member of the investment team and was most recently responsible for their Applied Kilovolts transaction. He was an Associate Partner at Deloitte in the corporate finance team, where he started and led their German private equity corporate finance advisory business and was also a key member of the London based buy-out advisory team. Guy has also worked for HSBC Private Equity, now Montague Private Equity, and KPMG where he led financial due diligence assignments. Guy is also an experienced private investor and has invested personally in a number of earlier stage companies. Guy is a chartered accountant and a graduate of Accounting and Finance from Warwick University.

 

Valerie Kendall

Investment Director,Valerie joined WFM from 3i, having spent 11 years in their UK private equity business. She is an experienced investor, who has completed more than 30 transactions, including MBOs, growth capital and infrastructure deals. She has also worked at every stage in the transaction process, from negotiating new transactions to delivering successful exits. Prior to her developing her career at 3i, she spent 4 years at HSBC encompassing corporate finance, fund management and private equity roles. Valerie is a chartered banker, and holds an honours degree in business studies.

 

Brenig Preest

Investment Executive, Brenig joined WFM in 2001. Since then he has made over 30 investments and sits on 5 Boards both as a Non Executive Director and observer. Brenig previously worked for GE Healthcare before joining PwC and later Ernst & Young as a corporate finance advisor. Brenig has a degree in pharmacology from Cardiff University and is currently studying financial strategy at Oxford University.

 

Richard Harbottle

Director. Richard was WFM’s Founding Managing Director and has extensive experience of making investments not only in Wales, but in many parts of the world, and has made over sixty investments during his career as a venture capitalist. Following the sale of WFM to Merchant Ventures Investments, Richard now acts as a consultant to WFM.

 

Dr. Jeremy Stone

Director. Dr Jeremy Stone is currently Chairman of Merchant Ventures Investments (MVIL), a UK-based investment group focussed on both venture capital and structured finance activities. Prior to MVIL, he founded a number of venture-stage healthcare companies, including OnMedica Group and Mediary. Jeremy was Chief Executive elect and a member of the Board of Directors of Ventiv (formerly Snyder Healthcare) and Head of the Healthcare Practice for Heidrick & Struggles International, as well as a senior strategy consultant at Gemini Consulting, where he assisted in establishing the global healthcare practice. He began his career as a physician for the National Health Service in the U.K. He currently serves as Chairman of Medical Futures Ltd., the UK’s leading source of early stage healthcare intellectual property, and serves as Visiting Professor of Lifesciences and Enterprise at the Welsh Institute for Health and Social Care, University of Glamorgan, Wales.