Board

John Birch

Non-executive Director and Co-Chairman
Chair of the Management Engagement and Conflicts Committees, member of the Remuneration and Nomination Committees

John Birch, a citizen of Denmark and resident of Luxembourg, is a senior financial executive with over 30 years' experience in asset management, international banking and board relationships. Currently, Mr. Birch is the Managing Partner of The Cardinal Partners Global S.a.r.l. Previously he was Chief Operating Officer of Sentinel Asset Management, Inc. and Sentinel Administrative Services, Inc., both members of National Life Group. He has also held senior roles in State Street, American Skandia Investment Services, Inc., Gabelli Funds, Inc. and Gabelli International. He has an MA in Tax and over 30 years experience in asset management.

Marc Gabelli

Non-executive Director and Co-Chairman
Chair of the Nomination Committee

Marc Gabelli is a director and President of the Portfolio Manager's parent company, GGCP, a director of Associated Capital Group "ACG" and is a Senior Portfolio Manager at Gabelli. He helped lead the initial public offering of GAMCO Investors, Inc. in February 1999 and the public offering of ACG in 2015. His portfolio assignments have included hedge fund management since 1990 and traditional asset management since 1994. He has managed several Morningstar 5 stars mutual funds, and a Lipper #1 ranked global equity mutual fund in the U.S. His focus is global, catalyst-driven value investing across all market capitalisations and industry sectors. He built the Portfolio Manager's hedge fund platform, Gabelli & Partners, in 1999, and opened the Gabelli London office in 2000 and the Gabelli Tokyo office in 2009. Mr. Gabelli started his investment career in the equity arbitrage group of Lehman Brothers International. He holds an MBA from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Sloan School of Management, a BA from Boston College, and the SEP diploma from Stanford University. He is a member of the New York Society of Securities Analysts. He is involved with various educational charities. In the UK he is a board member of the Sutton Trust.

Marco Bianconi

Independent non-executive Director
Chair of the Audit & Risk Committee, member of the Conflicts and Remuneration Committees

Marco Bianconi, an Italian citizen, is Head of Corporate Development, M&A and Investor Relations Director at Cementir Holding N.V. an international Building Materials manufacturer quoted on the Italian Stock exchange. He previously served for five years as CFO of its parent company Caltagirone SpA. Prior to this he worked for over eight years at Fidelity Investments in London as Portfolio Manager and PanEuropean Equity Analyst. Mr. Bianconi holds a number of non-executive roles within the Cementir group and is non-executive director at Henderson European Focus Trust Plc. Mr. Bianconi holds an MBA at NYU Stern School of Business, class 1996 and he is a Chartered Accountant since 1990.

John Newlands

Independent non-executive Director
Member of the Audit & Risk Committee

John Newlands, a UK citizen, has served more than twenty years in the City of London, most recently with Brewin Dolphin Limited as Head of Investment Companies Research from 2007 to 2017. He was a member of the Association of Investment Companies Statistics’ Committee from 2000 to 2017. He has an MBA from Edinburgh University Business School and is a Chartered Electrical Engineer. He has written four books about financial history, the most recent charting the history of Dunedin Income Growth Investment Trust. He is a non executive director of CQS New City High Yield Fund and Chair of Develop North PLC and Deputy Chair of the Investment Committee of Durham Cathedral.

James Scrymgeour-Wedderburn

Independent non-executive Director
Chair of the Remuneration Committee and member of the Audit & Risk Committee

James Wedderburn, a UK citizen, has over 40 years experience in the investment industry. From 1999 to 2017 he was Director of the family office of Sir Peter Lampl, founder of the Sutton Trust social mobility charity, where he was responsible for all financial and investment matters and closely involved with the charity’s finances. He worked previously at financial group Hamilton Lunn monitoring the global investments of ultra high net worth clients and, prior to that, was a fund manager at Invesco MIM and Samuel Montagu responsible for UK pension fund and charity clients. Mr. Wedderburn spent his early career as a UK equity research analyst at Cazenove and Laing & Cruickshank after graduating from Oxford University

Yuji Sugimoto

Independent non-executive Director
Member of the Nomination, Conflicts and Management Engagement Committees

Yuji Sugimoto is a dual citizen of the U.S. and Japan. He has over 37 years experience in financial markets. He is a former Executive Director of Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation in the US. Prior to this Yuji co-managed Japanese/Pan-Asian institutional research sales as a Managing Director at Lehman Brothers / Barclays. From 2003 to 2007 he managed a New York based Japanese equity hedge fund Sugimoto Capital Management LLC, which he founded. He started his career at Salomon Brothers working for 24 years in New York, London, Hong Kong and Tokyo in a number of institutional sales management positions as a Managing Director. He has a MBA from the University of Southern California and a B.A. in Economics from Columbia University.