This week's London appointments

This week’s round up of London appointments includes law firm Kennedys, Hayfin Capital Management, social media agency Born Social, and investment firm Techstars. Read on to find out more.

Paul Lowe, Kennedys

Global law firm Kennedys has recruited a leading construction and insurance specialist to join its London team.

Paul Lowe, formerly a partner at Weightmans, is experienced in insurance matters relating to the construction industry including on both policy coverage and defence.

An advocate for improving standards within construction, he has been appointed to advise the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities in connection with its building safety remediation programme and the development of the Building Safety Bill.

He is also a member of several industry forums including the professional conduct panel of the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA). Classics graduate Paul completed his training at RPC, where he qualified in 2009. He moved to Weightmans’ London office the following year, where he remained until this month.

Paul commented: “My focus on the UK insurance market, and specifically the professional indemnity construction sector, means a firm the size and scope of Kennedys was the perfect fit.”

Jeremy Riley, partner and head of professional liability at Kennedys, added: “Paul is well-known and highly respected across the industry, not only for his expertise but for his genuine passion and commitment to driving up standards and improving building safety.

“I am delighted to welcome him to Kennedys, and I know he will be a real asset to the team.”

Paul regularly advises on cases against a wide range of construction professionals and contractors including architects, engineers, quantity surveyors, project managers and approved building inspectors. He has particular expertise in managing high value, technical, multi-party disputes.

He has co-founded three groups made up of senior figures from across the construction and insurance sectors, aimed at promoting collaboration, and is also a member of the Society of Construction Law (SCL) and the Technology and Construction Solicitors’ Association (TECSA).

Marc Chowrimootoo, Hayfin Capital Management

Hayfin Capital Management announces the appointment of Marc Chowrimootoo as a MD and portfolio manager within its private credit business.

In this role, Marc will work closely with the investment team on sourcing and analysing investment opportunities, as well as portfolio management, across the firm’s private credit strategies.

Marc brings experience in leveraged finance as well as relationships within the European private equity community, complementing Hayfin’s deep origination and portfolio management capabilities and its sponsor relationships. Marc joins from Goldman Sachs, where he was a MD in the European Leveraged Finance team.

He has worked in similar roles for Barclays, Bank of America Merrill Lynch and Deutsche Bank and began his career as a banking and capital markets lawyer with White & Case. Marc will be based in London while working with Hayfin’s local investment teams across Europe.

Tim Flynn, CEO of Hayfin, said: “We are committed to equipping our private credit investment team with the best possible expertise, experience and local presence to operate a broad-based origination model that can identify and access the best investment opportunities across Europe.

“As the markets evolve in the post-pandemic period, we will benefit greatly from having Marc on board. He brings deep knowledge of the leveraged finance market and will further enhance our already strong relationships within the European sponsor community.”

Marc Chowrimootoo said: “Hayfin is a renowned and highly impressive private credit platform and the opportunity to be part of its continued growth and success across its strategies was a compelling one.

“I am looking forward to working with colleagues across Hayfin’s UK and Continental European offices to further expand and nurture the firm’s relationships with private equity sponsors and other borrowers, while supporting their focus on delivering best-in-class returns for our investors.”

Dan Pereira, Born Social

Social media agency, Born Social, has hired Dan Pereira as the agency’s new and first data and insight director.

Dan joins from global data science consultancy, Ekimetrics, where he helped manage a team of consultants delivering marketing effectiveness and analytics projects, focusing on retail, financial services and CPG.

During his time there, he owned the company’s Measurement Partnership with Meta (formerly known as Facebook), coordinating with the Marketing Sciences team to up-skill the consultancy and deliver bespoke research. Prior to this he was a Senior Data Analyst at Havas working with major brands.

Dan authored a number of reports while at Meta that helped shape understanding around effectiveness of Facebook campaigns. Dan joins as at a crucial time for the agency as data and insight become ever-important in the creation of social-first campaigns.

Born Social’s executive strategy director and partner, Callum McCahon, said: “As an industry, we’ve got some way to go in cracking measurement and effectiveness on social media - there’s often a lack of rigour and no widely agreed definition of best practice.

“We think we can be doing much better, and we’ve brought in Dan Pereira as our first ever Data & Insight Director to lead the way in doing just that.

“He’ll be driving the development of our proprietary measurement platform that will help our clients to understand the value of social-first thinking, clarifying the relationship between social activity and business impact. With his proven pedigree in the space, Dan’s the perfect person for the role - and we can’t wait to get cracking.”

Commenting on his new role at Born Social, Dan said: “I’m massively excited to be joining the team at Born Social.

“Their industry-leading thinking on Social-First brands aligns with my own views on how the marketing landscape is evolving and the opportunity to explore this from a measurement and effectiveness angle was an opportunity that I couldn’t pass up.

“Outside of measurement, I’ve quickly learned that Born has a growing team, strong culture and embedded values that I share so I’m thrilled to be a part of this journey.”

Saalim Chowdhury, Techstars

Techstars, a global investment business has announced the appointment of Saalim Chowdhury as MD of Techstars London. He follows predecessor Eamonn Carey.

Formerly a partner at 500 Startups, Chowdhury will lead the growth of the startup accelerator in London, as it expands to two programmes a year, in April and September.

Techstars London will open to startups across new sectors, welcoming more b2b startups in healthtech, fintech and web3, and using technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning.

Techstars London is looking for early-stage founders who would benefit from a programme that develops entrepreneurial talent, accelerates startup growth, and gets them closer to product-market fit.

Whilst the programme is London-based, Chowdhury’s focus will be on attracting startups around the UK and will be touring the country to do so.

Saalim Chowdhury, commented: “What drew me to Techstars is the deep commitment to developing founders and communities, especially here in the UK and Europe. Global rivals continue to dramatically increase class sizes, with little or no footprint in Europe, but Techstars is staying at 12 companies per batch.

“Instead, we’re increasing the number of programmes in key cities like London and hiring more talent to deliver them, so that we can continue to foster personal connections and development, individual attention and a deeply bonded community.”

“I want to work with founders that are creating services for new audiences, or changing the way convention has been dictated for years, mostly by bringing perspectives from one industry to another. There must also be a positive impact on society. The goal is to create stronger startups from a more diverse range of backgrounds.”

Saalim continued: “Eamonn has left big shoes to fill, and I am eager to continue and expand upon his great work. I’m delighted to lead this growth from London, as Techstars doubles down in the UK”

He will use his many years of experience developing founders and startup teams to identify and empower emerging talent. He is an advocate for being open about mental health and active in supporting minority founders.

Chowdhury is also an active angel investor, amongst his investments are Axie Infinity, a play-to-earn NFT game with a $3bn valuation backed by Andreeson Horowitz; Nothing.tech, a next-generation hardware startup, supported by Google Ventures; and Quit Genius, a digital addiction clinic, that received investment from Atomico.

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