TEAM
Lance Whitehead
Founder and Chief Executive
ljw@cygnus-capital.com
Following a career as an officer in the Royal Air Force Regiment, Lance joined Banque Indosuez in Bahrain in 1995, placing private equity and venture funds across the Middle East. On return to UK, he worked with Merrill Lynch, Coutts & Co, Citibank, and Dresdner Kleinwort Capital. Additionally for 7 years, concurrent with his Cygnus activities, he was responsible for the European and Gulf Region business interests of Landmark Partners, the leading private equity secondary manager.
Since 1995, Lance has raised over €3 bn for a variety of private equity, venture capital, real estate and hedge fund managers, and for direct investments. He has worked in the European private equity markets continuously since 2000 and continues to lead Cygnus Capital's activities in the Gulf Region.
Lance has a marketing-oriented MBA from Henley Management College and he speaks reasonable Arabic and some German and French.
John Donachie
Compliance Director
John Donachie is an experienced compliance adviser and MLRO specialist. He has advised hedge funds, institutional brokerages, private equity and wealth management groups on a range of compliance and regulatory issues. He has also worked as a compliance officer for major German, Japanese and Swiss Banks.
John was an authorisation officer and surveillance inspector at the Securities and Futures Authority (now FSA). Prior to this, he worked in Eurobond and Equity Derivative sales with UBS, Bankers Trust, Toronto Dominion and JP Morgan.