At Essentia, we’re passionate advocates of the role that next-generation intelligent technology can play in improving investor performance.
Our team’s proven pedigree in investment, technology and behavioral science means we are uniquely placed to understand the needs of active investors and build the tools that help them perform.
Leadership Team
Prior to founding Essentia, Clare spent 10 years as a fund manager, both active equity (running over $1B of pension funds for Deutsche Asset Management) and hedge (as founder and CIO of Avocet Capital Management, a specialist tech fund manager). She ultimately “went native” into the software space as President of Beauchamp Financial Technology, a market-leading provider of portfolio management systems to hedge funds, which was acquired by Linedata Services S.A. Clare’s vision for Essentia is based on years of being the customer, followed by years of listening to the customer.
Julian joined Essentia having been the Co-Founder and COO of Skin Analytics, designers of cloud-based technology to assist in the early detection of skin cancer. Prior to that, he spent seven years as a manager of fintech development and testing teams for buyside fintech vendor Simcorp (CPH: SIM), before earning his MBA at London Business School.
Joshua is well-known in the fintech industry, having co-founded one of the first hedge funds dedicated to alternative credit. Previously, Joshua was a successful entrepreneur, practiced securities law at a global law firm and “cut his teeth” in the genteel world of NYC politics. He has been a student of behavioral finance since his post-grad days at the London School of Economics.
Chris is an Essentia client who liked it so much, he joined the company. Prior to joining us, he was a technology analyst at GAM Investment Management and a hedge fund analyst at GAM Multi Manager in London. Before his career in financial services, Chris was a professional footballer with Newcastle United. He holds a MSc in Bioinformatics from Imperial College and an MA in Maths & Computer Science from Oxford University. In his spare time Chris is a trainee mountain guide.
Doug brings a wealth of experience to Essentia’s global marketing and communication activities. Before joining Essentia, he held CMO roles at Octagon Asset Management and Marsh Inc., the global insurance brokerage firm. Prior to this, he held leadership roles at Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, McGraw-Hill, Time Inc. and ABC News.
Andy has managed successful technology teams for more than 20 years. Prior to joining Essentia, he led engineering and delivery for several reputable brands in the property and e-commerce sectors, including PrimeLocation.com, FindaProperty.com, Glasses Direct and Sunglasses Shop. Andy studied Computing and Software Development at Farnborough College of Technology and has advocated Agile software development practices since the early 2000s.
Carolina has a track record of building and leading first-rate finance departments in fast-growing companies. Before joining Essentia, she was CFO of property technology venture Realforce, where she orchestrated multiple fundraises and completed an acquisition. Prior to this, she ran her own accounting firm in her native Sweden.
Essentia Insight Partners are all former portfolio managers who understand the PM’s point of view and can guide the iterative process of using data analytics to continuously improve performance. They’re part of the Essentia Insight Advantage service.
Essentia Non-Executive Directors
Charley is an investment consultant and writer, dubbed “the wisest man on Wall Street” by Money Magazine. Author of multiple books, his classic “Winning the Loser’s Game” was lauded by Peter Drucker as “by far the best book on investment policy and management.”
Charley founded Greenwich Associates, an international strategic consulting firm focused on financial institutions, where he served as Managing Partner for 30 years. He has been appointed to the faculties of both Harvard Business School and the Yale School of Management, has served on the Board of Directors at Harvard Business School, chaired Yale University’s investment committee, and has served as Finance Chair for Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and as Chairman of the Board of the Institute of Chartered Financial Analysts.
Kevin started LinkedIn Europe from his spare bedroom in 2007, and ran it to the IPO in 2011. During his 13 years in Europe, he was responsible for the international operations of three Silicon Valley companies (AltaVista, SideStep and LinkedIn).
Kevin is widely recognized for his hyper-growth and international expansion experience in the technology sector. He has been a speaker at TEDx London, 10 Downing Street, the White House as well as others.
Martin is co-founder at the scale-up advisory The Gorilla Factory and has over 30 years of experience in the technology industry as an entrepreneur, CEO and advisor. He serves on the boards of multiple B2B SaaS companies, including SHE Software, EyeQuant, Veeqo, Wazoku and BlackCurve. Martin has extensive experience advising early stage and companies on the most effective go-to-market strategy, and has particular expertise on driving growth and B2B sales and marketing.
Dominic is Head of Portfolio Management at Calculus Capital. Prior to joining Calculus, he was a co-founding partner of Valtegra, a special situations / turnaround focused mid-market private equity firm. He has over 20 years of investment experience, including as an investment banker in both M&A execution and sector coverage at HSBC, Nomura and KPMG. He is also a qualified chartered accountant and has an MBA from Bocconi University in Milan and a Masters in Finance from London Business School.
“Essentia’s technology helps skillful investors apply the insights of behavioral finance principles to the real world of investment decision-making. While the broad market is increasingly embracing index funds, the best fund managers can and should go the other way and ‘double down’ on their skills. Indeed, top fund managers should be using technology to raise their games in this way and create for themselves what competitors might call an ‘unfair competitive advantage.'”
Charley Ellis
Non-Executive Director
Essentia Advisory Board
Peter served as CEO of the Man Group for five years, before retiring in 2013. He currently serves as a Non-Executive Director to multiple investment management and insurance institutions, including AXA Investment Management SA, Lombard Odier Investment Management and Lancashire Holdings Insurance. He is also Chairman of the National Teaching Awards Trust.
Mark is Associate Dean of Strategy at The Open University Business School. An acknowledged authority in the field of Behavioral Finance, in 2012, he completed the xDelia project, a large cross-European research effort focused on improving our understanding of the role played by emotion in financial decision-making by investors and professional traders and developing new, technologically supported, approaches to enhancing the quality of financial decisions.
Imad is currently the Director of Data Science at Ovo Energy. A multi-disciplinary scientist with expertise in complex systems modeling/simulations, machine learning and big data, he has a Ph.D. in Neuroscience, an M.Sc. in Robotics, a B.E. in Computer Engineering, and publications across disciplines. Imad started his career at Goldman Sachs, where he was a strategist and an algo trading quant. He then joined Essentia as its Chief Scientist and played a key part in the early-stage development of the Insight product, before taking a data science manager role at Facebook.
Shweta is a respected consultant on data-driven decision science projects and a part-time research officer at the London School of Economics. From 2008 to 2013, she worked periodically as a Quantitative and Behavioral Finance consultant at Barclays, conducting research for global strategic and tactical asset allocation models, as well as building wealth simulation and risk rating tools. Shweta holds an M.Sc. in Decision Sciences from the LSE and a M.A. in Mathematics from the University of Cambridge. Shweta completed her Ph.D. in Decision Sciences at the London School of Economics in 2014 as an AXA Research Fund scholar.
Dr. Chamorro-Premuzic is an international authority in psychological profiling, consumer analytics and talent management. He is currently CEO of Hogan Assessments, Professor of Business Psychology at University College London (UCL), Visiting Professor at Columbia University, and has previously taught at New York University and the London School of Economics. He has published over 100 scientific papers and 8 books, including Confidence (published by Profile Books in 2013).
Dinesh is a seasoned executive with over 30 years of experience in IT Strategy, technology innovation, product development, data management and marketing in the financial services industry. Most recently, he spent 20 years at Fidelity Investments in various leadership roles including as a Senior Vice President at Fidelity Center for Applied Technology, with responsibilities for technology research and platform innovation for enterprise and customer facing technologies in support of retail and institutional customers.
Pete is a core member of Egon Zehnder’s Private Capital practice and a former partner and portfolio manager at Caxton Associates, where he focused on credit and equity investments. Pete is an expert on portfolio and investment risk in professionally managed funds and portfolios. As well as his investment experience, he brings valuable insights and support to building Essentia.
Oliver brings financial service experience and expertise with over two decades in the banking and asset management sectors. He was Global co-Head of Product Development & Management at Credit Suisse Asset Management, where he served as a Board Member. Today he is an angel investor and advisor to various start-ups.
