ECI Partners has promoted Rory Nath (1) to partner, Isabella Fox (2) and Sarthak Sawlani (3) to director and Louis Jans (4) to manager in its investment team. In its commercial team, Mia Smith (5) is promoted to investment manager.

Nath joined ECI in 2015 as associate in the commercial team from OC&C Strategy Consultants. In 2018 he was promoted to manager and moved to ECI’s investment team. He was made director three years ago and sits on the board of ECI’s portfolio companies TAG and Croud. 

Fox joined ECI in 2023 after two years as an investor at BGF. Before that she spent seven years with PwC, where she trained as an ACA, before moving into M&A advisory. 

Sawlani joined ECI as investment manager in 2021 from Oakley Advisory, where he spent four years and was an assistant director. Prior to that, he spent two years with PwC in its TMT M&A advisory team. 

Jans joined ECI in 2023 from Houlihan Lokey where he spent four years, in London and initially his native Belgium. 

Smith joined ECI as investment associate in 2022 after four years at OC&C Strategy Consultants.

BGF has made multiple partner promotions in its investment and portfolio teams, and given new roles on its investment committee and investment leadership team.

Edinburgh-based Paddy Graham (1), who has been with BGF 13 years, and Leeds-based Barry Jackson (2), who has been there 11 years, are made regional partners.

In the investment team Alex Garfitt (3), Alex Snodgrass (4), Chris Boyes (5), Harry Jones (6), Leo Casey (7), Ned Dorbin (8), Pinesh Mehta (9) and Seb Saywood (10) have been made partner. 

In addition, Corporate Finance Faculty chair Alastair Brew joins BGF’s investment leadership team along with Barry Jackson, Dennis Atkinson and Paddy Graham. Snodgrass and Atkinson are now members of the investment committee; Atkinson has also been promoted to co-head of early stage, alongside Tim Rea.

In the portfolio team, Graham Clarke, Jill Williams, Jon Earl, Luke Rajah, Matt Simcox, Spencer Woods and Will Gresty have also been made partner.

Gemma Hamilton has been promoted to national head of origination, and Liz Warburton has become head of corporate affairs.

WestBridge has promoted Thomas Dutton (above) to investment director. He joined the firm’s Manchester office from Dow Schofield Watts last year as a senior investment manager. He leads on deal origination and works closely with portfolio companies in the North West, including APEM and Alpine Fire Engineers. He spent seven years with Dow Schofield Watts in corporate finance, having trained as an ACA with KPMG in Manchester.

LDC has made two more hires to its value creation partners (VCP) team, following the recruitment of Lizzie Meadowcroft. Mustafa Khanbhai (1) has joined as VCP director, commercial; and Prashant Selvaratnam (2) as VCP director, data strategy and AI. 

Khanbhai, based in Manchester, started his career in corporate development at Mars and Virgin, before joining Uber as general manager for customer operations and strategy, UK and Ireland. 

Selvaratnam, based in Bristol, started out as a structural engineer with Fairlead Maritime before joining management consultancy Newton Europe. He then held data leadership roles at digital security specialist Onfido, data analytics consultancy QuantSpark and airline Condor Flugdienst.