Our People

James is the first CEO of The Hg Foundation. James has been working in the philanthropy, education and social mobility sectors for 20 years. He was previously the CEO of the Sutton Trust, which supports young people into the most competitive universities, apprenticeships and jobs, as well as influencing policy. Prior to that he was the founding Deputy CEO of the £125m Education Endowment Foundation, the UK government’s ‘what works’ centre for education.
James studied English at Cambridge and has been a governor of a comprehensive school and a trustee of various education charities. He is currently on the Board of the Centre for Homelessness Impact. James lives in the East Midlands with his wife, two sons and dog.

Until recently Tom was a Director of the Private Equity Foundation, Chairman of the Academies and Free Schools Board at the Department for Education, a member of the Commission for Social Mobility and Child Poverty and the Hastings Pier Charity. Tom is also Chairman of the Attwood Educational Foundation and Attwood Academies and T4 Trust, sponsors of Bexhill Academy, Ian Mikardo High School and WacArts.

Matthew is a Managing Partner, the Chair of the Hg Investment Committee and a member of the Hg board. Matthew focuses on the leadership of the firm.
Matthew joined Hg in 2010 and originally led the creation of the smaller cap Mercury funds before taking on his current role. He has acted across many of the investments in the Mercury and Genesis funds and is currently a board member of Azets and Norstella.
Prior to joining Hg, Matthew was a Partner at Apax Partners and has a B Eng (1st class) from Imperial College, London and an MBA from Harvard Business School where he was a Fulbright Scholar.

Richard Donner is a former partner at Hg and was a member of the Capital Markets team. Richard is now actively involved with and supports a number of educational outreach charities.

Kevan recently served as England’s Education Recovery Commissioner. Prior to taking this role, Kevan was Chief Executive Officer of the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF). Between 2005 and 2011 Kevan was Chief Executive and Director of Children’s Services in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets.
Kevan serves on a number of UK based and international boards for a range of organisations focused on improving outcomes for young people. He and has recently been appointed to the inaugural board of Australia’s Education Research Organisation.
Kevan completed his doctorate at Leeds University in 2001 and is a visiting professor at the University College London Institute of Education he holds an honorary degree from Durham University.

Martina is a Partner and responsible for the firm’s private capital activities, leading the Hg Wealth team.
Hg Wealth is a dedicated team that sits within Hg, providing investment opportunities exclusively to individual clients and their wealth advisors, as well as family offices.
Martina served as Deputy COO until March 2022, starting Hg’s Diversity & Inclusion Steering Committee as part of that role.
She joined Hg in 2009 from Citigroup, where she worked on a number of capital markets and private equity transactions as part of the Nordic mergers and acquisitions team.
She is a Swedish national and holds a MSc in accounting and financial management from the Stockholm School of Economics and the University of British Columbia.

Juan is a Partner at Hg and a member of the Capital Markets team. He also sits on Hg’s Realisation Committee. Juan brings over 15 years of capital markets experience, having served in Sponsor financing capacities in New York and London.
Prior to Hg, Juan was the Head of Capital Markets at Lone Star Funds where he was responsible for the capital market activities of the private equity efforts in Europe. Previously, Juan spent over a decade in the Investment Banking Division at Goldman Sachs, where he focused on leveraged finance sponsor transactions. He led a large number of complex sponsor financings across a wide range of sectors, having completed over 100 transactions during his career.
He holds a Diplom-Kaufmann (MBA) degree from WHU – Otto Beisheim School of Management and a Masters of Science in Financial Mathematics from New York University.

Richard focusses on financial software and data investments in Hg’s Mercury team, across insurance, asset and wealth management and capital markets. He is currently a Board Member at TrustQuay, Riskalyze, FE fundinfo and smartTrade. His prior investments at Hg include Intelliflo, Sequel, Business Solutions and Relay Software.
Richard is also a Founding Trustee of the Hg Foundation, with a focus on improving education and access to the world of technology, across the world.
Richard joined Hg in 2011 from Deloitte Consulting in London, working on a range of strategy and M&A advisory projects
Richard graduated from the University of Oxford with first class Honours in Economics and Management.

Zoe Zhao is a Principal at Hg and founding member of Hg’s San Francisco office. She currently sits on the board of Visma. Born and raised in China, Zoe has since lived and worked in four continents. She is passionate about driving social mobility from education and encouraging diversity in STEM fields.

Robert is a Senior Associate in Hg’s Genesis team, based out of New York, Robert focuses on software and services investments in North America and is a key part of the team working with Prophix and HHAeXchange.
Robert joined Hg in 2019 from UBS Investment Bank where he worked on the Technology and Leveraged Finance teams in San Francisco and New York, executing M&A and Leveraged Loan transactions for software companies.
He received a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration degree majoring in Finance and Management from Georgetown University, where he graduated cum laude.

Caroline is Head of Responsible Investment at Hg and covers all Environment, Social and Governance (ESG) related topics across the Hg portfolio, where she actively works with businesses to reduce risk, identify best practice and improve ESG performance.
Caroline is part of the BVCA’s Responsible Investment Advisory Group, Invest Europe’s Responsible Investment Affiliate Network, as well as the UK Operating Committee of initiative Climate International (iCI).
Before joining Hg in 2017, Caroline spent over eight years in strategy consulting and in-house sustainability roles across various industries, most recently as the global supply chain sustainability lead at GlaxoSmithKline. Caroline has a MSc in Industrial Engineering and Management from Lund University and Shanghai Jiao Tong University, and a Post Graduate Certificate in Sustainable Value Chains from Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership.