Advisors

Christopher Hume (UK)

Board Advisor – Compliance Officer and Money Laundering Reporting Officer (Prestige Asset Management Limited)

Associated with Prestige since 2010

Mr Hume is the compliance officer and money laundering reporting officer of Prestige Asset Management.  He is a qualified Chartered Certified Accountant  (FCCA) who changed career in 1993 to  specialise in Compliance.  He has over 17 years compliance experience gained mainly at Lazard Brothers London assisting the Group Compliance Director.  More recently he has been a consultant providing compliance services including monitoring to small regulated firms of asset managers, venture capitalists and corporate financiers. He specialises in money laundering awareness training and regularly provides training to small regulated firms. Approved in the UK by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA).

Adam de Domenico (Malta)

Board Advisor – Compliance Officer (Prestige SICAV PLC / Prestige Capital Management Limited)

Associated with Prestige since 2011

Mr de Domenico is the compliance officer and money laundering reporting officer of Prestige SICAV PLC and Prestige Capital Management Limited. Mr de Domenico was admitted as a member of the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants UK in 1996, graduated with a Masters of Arts in Financial Services from the University of Malta in 2009 and obtained a Diploma in Corporate Finance, Treasury and Portfolio Management in 2010. Mr de Domenico was previously at PricewaterhouseCoopers (1988-2002) as a manager in audit and subsequently as a senior consultant in Malta, New York and San Francisco. Mr de Domenico obtained experience advising small Fortune 50 companies in multiple industries across the USA and Europe and acquired a solid background in finance, management and operations.  Between 2004 and 2007 Mr de Domenico was the CFO and COO of a commodity trading advisor based in Malta and regulated by the MFSA. In 2008 a company Mr de Domenico co-founded obtained a licence to operate as a property fund from the MFSA and in 2009 Mr de Domenico founded Zodiac Advisory Services Limited to serve the asset management industry with non-executive board members, compliance officers and support and other support services. Mr de Domenico, through Zodiac, acts a Director, Investment Committee member and Compliance Officer on a number of funds and fund managers.

David Head (UK)

Board Advisor – Director of Research – Finance / Lending Strategies

Associated with Prestige since 2013

Mr Head has a long career in UK-based commercial banking and acts as Director of Finance / Lending Strategies for Prestige Fund Management Limited, investment manager to several Prestige Funds with a focus on asset-based, finance, lending and factoring strategies.  Mr Head also advises the board of Prestige Fund Management Limited on the company’s proprietary investments in the same space as well as researching new investment opportunities.  Mr Head brings a wealth of experience in commercial asset-based lending and finance activity having worked for Barclays Bank plc from 1974-2001 where his last role involved acting as a Corporate Manager responsible for a mixed portfolio of 150 small and medium-sized enterprise clients with a bias towards property development/investment and franchised motor dealers.  From 2001-2010 Mr Head was employed by Allied Irish Bank where, among other achievements, he built from scratch a GBP£160ml loan book over 5 years which had no defaults and focused on charitable, healthcare and education sectors unlike most other British teams which were heavily exposed to the property sector.  From 2010-2013 Mr Head was persuaded to rejoin Barclays where he acted as a Relationship Director with a portfolio of over 40 corporate clients (sales turnover GBP£5M-£50M) biased towards professional service sectors.  Mr Head brings a particular set of professional skills including credit analysis, credit negotiation, business risk analysis, market risk analysis and operational risk analysis.  Previous experience at British Insurance Association, London.

Michael Graham Cloete FCA (UK)

Board Advisor – Research – Finance / Lending Strategies

Associated with Prestige since 2009

Mr Graham-Cloete serves as a qualitative research analyst for Prestige Lux Holdings 2 SARL and Prestige Fund Management Limited and he is a board advisor focusing on asset-based lending and leasing solutions.  Mr Graham-Cloete is an accountant by training and has more than 30 years experience in the management of small and medium-sized businesses.  After training in London Mr Graham-Cloete joined Peat Marwick Mitchell (KPMG) in Johannesburg to obtain further experience in the profession.  From 1979 to 1998 he held a number of executive positions as General Manager or CEO including Reed Mining Tools in South Africa which was a division of Baker Hughes Inc. and British Airways Helicopters in the UK, at the time a subsidiary of British Airways.  In more recent times Mr Graham-Cloete has been based in the United Kingdom and reverted to more financially-based activities, acting as Finance Director or Financial Advisor to a number of local businesses.  During this time he has been involved with raising capital for business expansion, acquisitions and disposals and has a broad range of contacts with local bankers, lawyers and accountancy firms.

Sharon Carlson MPhil / BA (Hons) (USA)

Board Advisor – Research – Qualitative Investment Strategies

Associated with Prestige since 2009

Ms Carlson serves as a qualitative research analyst for Prestige Fund Management Limited and an advisor to the board.  She started her career as an analyst for Hewitt Associates (Chicago) and, following that was a corporate healthcare consultant with Deloitte (Chicago) between 1999 and 2002.  Ms Carlson has also worked extensively in the non-profit sector as a Project Coordinator for the Stupski Foundation in San Francisco as well as a Finance Manager for the American Refugee Committee in Darfur, Sudan.  Ms Carlson holds a BA from Northwestern University (Economics and German Studies) and a MPhil from Oxford University (Development Studies). She speaks German fluently and has a working knowledge of French.

Dr Massimiliano Todaro PhD / MA / BA (Hons) (Italy)

Board Advisor – Research – Quantitative Investment Strategies

Associated with Prestige since 2008

Dr Todaro serves as a quantitative research analyst for Prestige Fund Management Limited and an advisor to the board.  He began his career in Italy as financial markets trader, advisor and quantitative system developer in 1999 after completing his MA in Economics, specialising in Banks and Financial Markets at Economic University of Genoa (Italy).  Formally a financial consultant and Director at Pronum Limited (a financial consultancy to funds and hedge funds).  Previous experience as a quantitative analyst and risk manager at Frame Asset Management (a private clients insurance company). Previous experience as an advisor to a large Italian family office.  Dr Todaro has been a quantitative analyst and portfolio manager at New Haven Asset Management (an international hedge fund management company) between 2005 and 2008.  Dr Todaro actively continues as an independent researcher and developer of financial tools and software that analyses financial markets and supports the financial management of companies (portfolio manager, risk manager etc).  His theory and practice is worldwide-based: finance, math, data mining and machine learning, artificial intelligence, financial engineering, computer science and decision support system.  He has taken ideas from cartography, bio-informatics and genetic engineering in order to develop new tools putting a value-added to financial companies.

Theodore H Swindells MBA / BA (Hons) (USA)

Board Advisor

Associated with Prestige since 2007

Mr Swindells has more than twenty-five years of experience in financing, acquiring, merging, and advising publicly-traded companies as a partner or principal in successful venture capital, investment banking and merchant banking firms in New York, San Francisco and London.  During this time Mr Swindells has specialized in founding, financing and developing growth companies and has developed a successful track record of combining timely business and market strategies with effective management teams to launch and bring early-stage and large high-growth companies to the public markets. Mr Swindells has advised companies that have gone on to be listed on the NASDAQ, London AIM and American Stock Exchanges.  His client companies have successfully completed hundreds of millions of dollars in equity and debt financings and mergers and acquisitions.  Currently Mr Swindells is Chairman of European American Equities Limited (London); Senior Managing Director, TerraNova Capital Partners Inc. and TerraNova Capital Management LLC (New York); and Managing Director, M1 Capital Group Limited (San Francisco and Beijing, China).  In addition to founding and serving as a principal in a number of his own merchant banking firms, Mr Swindells’ previous experience includes corporate finance and venture capital positions with Drexel Burnham Lambert, RubiconVentures, Hambrecht and Quist, Woodman Kirkpatrick and Gilbreath and Bank of America.  Mr Swindells holds a BA in economics from Claremont Men’s College and an MBA in Finance from Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Business.

Jerry Stelli MBA / BA (Hons) (USA)

Board Advisor

Associated with Prestige since 2007

Mr Stelli is a founder of Matrix Ascent Partners (a New York-based hedge fund consulting and capital introductions group with operations in Tokyo) and serves as CEO.  Mr Stelli, with over twenty years experience in banking, capital markets and alternative investment management, began his career in 1985 at JP Morgan & Co. in the Asia Pacific and Private Banking groups.  In 1989 he joined US Trust Co. to develop and apply quantitative performance analysis to outside fund managers.  In 1990 Mr Stelli joined International Foreign Exchange Concepts Inc. where he was responsible for marketing advisory and investment management services to institutions throughout Asia and Europe. In 1995 Mr Stelli joined Titan Capital Management Limited (an international asset management group) as General Manager and Head of Global Institutional Marketing where, based in Hong Kong, London and New York, he was responsible for the firm’s overall strategic development and more specifically its Asian operations.  After assisting in Titan’s sale in 1999, Mr Stelli joined M.D. Sass as Managing Director and Head of Marketing where he was responsible for marketing and business development for all investment products including private equity and hedge funds and funds of hedge funds. Prior to founding Matrix Ascent Partners, Mr Stelli served as Director of Strategic Business Development at Caxton Associates (an international hedge fund group) where, as a member of Caxton’s senior management, he was responsible for both marketing and client management and the identification of new investment managers for the firm.  Mr Stelli holds a BA from Columbia University (Political Philosophy & Chinese Language, Culture and Politics) and attended the Stanford Graduate School of Business Executive Program.

Sir Tom Lowe Bt. QC / BA (Hons) (UK)

Board Advisor

Mr Lowe has acted in numerous reported and high profile cases in a wide range of commercial disputes and before a large variety of tribunals.  A large proportion of his work is offshore and his main areas of expertise include commercial fraud, insolvency, trust litigation, professional negligence and financial services banking as well as probate disputes.  Much of Mr Lowe’s offshore work relates to the multi-jurisdictional disputes arising from the collapses of investments funds and from high value private client work.  Many of these cases by their nature have involved asset tracing in the context of commercial or financial fraud.  As well as acting for clients in the Far East he has appeared overseas in courts in the Bahamas, Bermuda, the Cayman Islands and Jersey and has a number of overseas clients.  His professional negligence work for which he is recommended in the Legal 500 directory includes accountants, auditors, financial advisers, valuers, solicitors and barristers.  In financial services he has acted for regulators, financial advisers as well as investors. He has appeared before disciplinary tribunals on behalf of accountants and investment businesses.  Mr Lowe was called to the Bar in 1985 and took silk in 2008.  Having obtained an upper second LLB from London School of Economics he went on to obtain a First in his LLM at Cambridge.  He won the Inner Temple Queen Elizabeth scholarship when he came to the Bar and a number of prizes at the College of Law.  He joined Wilberforce Chambers in 1997.  He speaks German fluently and has a working knowledge of French and Spanish.

Brian Clothier (UK)

International Business Development

Associated with Prestige since 2007

Mr Clothier is a director of Prestige Consultancy FZC (based in the United Arab Emirates) and Prestige International Marketing Services Limited as well as International Sales Director for Prestige Asset Distribution Limited (both based in the British Virgin Islands).  He was formally with Abbey National Financial and Investment Services (a subsidiary of Abbey National plc) as Regional Manager and Sector Sales Manager in Asia with Scottish Provident International (a life insurance company) and Scottish Mutual International (a life insurance company). Mr Clothier has an extensive background in international business development and a number of commercial roles marketing offshore – banking, investment funds, securities and insurance-related products with over 20 years in the Offshore Markets of Asia and Middle East.  Formerly a Senior Private Client Manager at Berkeley Burke International (a Hong Kong-based private client financial services firm). Formally a Private Client Wealth Manager at Connaught Financial Planning (a Hong Kong-based private client financial services firm).  Formally Managing Director at Firstlink Financial Services (a UK-based private client financial services firm).  Formally a partner at Rothgrove Financial Services (a UK-based private client financial services firm).  Formally a Sales Consultant at Marlowe-Sachs (a UK-based private client financial services firm).

Edward Pantani (UK)

International Business Development

Associated with Prestige since 2008

Mr Pantani is Regional Sales Director South East Asia for Prestige Asset Distribution Limited.  He was formally with Platinum Capital Management Japan Limited (an affiliate of Platinum Capital Management Limited). Previously Managing Director and CEO of Hanover York International Limited (a global investment brokerage).  Mr Pantani has been in Asia for over 20 years and has extensive experience in regional business management and development and marketing offshore – banking, investment funds, securities and insurance related products.  Previously a Consultant and Senior Manager at Collingwood Limited (a Hong Kong-based private client financial services firm).  Previously a Financial Consultant and Manager at Allied Dunbar (a UK-based private client financial services firm).