Search funds

Simon learned about the search fund model while studying for his MBA at London Business School. He raised a search fund and acquired Rehabilitation Services Ltd. in 1995. As the CEO of RSL, he grew the business from £3.5m to £30m in sales and from £0.4m to £2.4m in EBITDA over a 10-year period. He successfully sold the business in December 2005, realizing an excellent return for investors. Simon continues his entrepreneurial activities and is an active investor in search funds, mentoring search funders and serving as a non-executive director on search fund boards.

Marc founded Ariol Capital, the first search fund in Spain, and acquired Repli in Spain and Pentapackaging in italy. He grew the businesses as a CEO and successfully sold them to a strategic buyer in 2020. Prior to founding Ariol Capital, Marc worked for a lower-mid-market private equity firm in Boston. Previously, he held various business development and sales management positions at Promax Electronics in Barcelona, Agilent Technologies in Stuttgart and Hewlett-Packard in Madrid.
Marc serves as a director of several private companies and is co-founder of Albira Investments, a private firm that makes long-term investments in healthy businesses sourced and managed by search fund entrepreneurs.
Marc holds an industrial engineering degree from the Technical University of Catalonia (UPC) and an MBA from MIT Sloan School of Management.

Jay Davis is a co-founder of The Nashton Company, a holding company investing in recurring revenue services businesses.  Nashton focuses on building leading companies in niche markets over a very long period of time.

Previously, Jay served as the CEO of Vector Disease Acquisition, a company that provides vector-borne disease prevention programs and lake management services.  Under Jay’s leadership, the company made 14 acquisitions.  Vector Disease Acquisition was acquired by Rentokil Initial (FTSE: RTO) in November of 2017.  Jay is an active investor in the lower middle market and is currently an Executive in Residence at The Harvard Business School, where he co-teaches the curriculum focused on Entrepreneurship Through Acquisition.

Jay obtained a Master in Business Administration from Harvard Business School and graduated from Vanderbilt University with a degree in Economics.  Jay and his wife Susan have three boys and live in Nashville, TN.

Rob is a successful entrepreneur and business angel investor. He co-founded a big data company in the United States that was backed by 10 venture capital firms. Following the sale of that company, Rob moved to Europe and taught for 10 years at London Business School. Since 2000 he has taught the Entrepreneurial Finance course at IESE Business School, where he also founded the International Search Fund Center. He has served as a director of many private companies, including search funds and their acquisition companies. He serves on the Advisory Board of Palamon Capital Partners in London and the Investment Committee of the Cambodia-Laos-Myanmar Development Fund. Rob holds a BA from Davidson College and an MBA from the Darden School at the University of Virginia.

From 1993 until 2010, Peter was CEO of Pacific Pulmonary Services (PPS), a home respiratory services provider that grew during that time from 12 to 115 locations. He also previously served as CFO and COO, and was co-founder of the search fund that acquired the predecessor to PPS. Peter has prior investing experience at TA Associates, a private equity firm, where he originated investments in software and communication companies. He has served as on a number of boards of directors. Peter received a BA in Science, Technology and Social Theory, a MSc in Industrial Engineering and an MBA, all from Stanford University. Peter currently teaches two courses at Stanford Graduate School of Business (Entrepreneurial Acquisitions, Managing Growing Enterprises) and one course at IESE Business School (Search Funds).

Mr. Martín-Cabiedes is an investment manager at Cabiedes & Partners SCR, a VC-Fund focused on seed investments in the Spanish ICT space. Cabiedes & Partners SCR manages capital of local and pan-European institutional investors. Since 1998, it has invested in over 60 companies. The fund currently holds in excess of 60 seed and high-growth companies and has exited more than 10 portfolio companies, such as: ADQ, Privalia, Trovit, BlaBlaCar, Habitissimo and Deporvilage.

He is a Senior Lecturer in the Entrepreneurship department at IESE Business School.

Mr. Martín-Cabiedes is a member of the Board at EuropaPress, the biggest news agency in Spain, and holds an MBA from IESE and a Civil Engineering degree from ICAI.

Santiago Perez Teuffer is a managing partner at Cerralvo Capital, which is a global search fund investor, with investments across Europe and North and South America. He has made his career in finance and entrepreneurship in Latin America. Santiago holds a BS in Finance by Tec de Monterrey, an MBA from the Stanford GSB and an MS in Energy from the Stanford School of Energy. He loves soccer, skiing and reading, spending time with friends and sharing good tequila.

Jürgen is the owner and Managing Director of Mirablau, an investment and consulting group. In 2001, Jürgen founded Mirablau as his self-funded search vehicle and finally co-acquired Grundig Business Systems. Today, Mirablau holds several private equity and venture capital investments. Before founding Mirablau, Jürgen worked with Rodenstock and Roland Berger. He currently serves on several advisory boards and is a serial search fund investor. Jürgen holds a Master’s Degree in Engineering from Technische Universität München, an MBA from IESE Business School and lectured on entrepreneurship at the Entrepreneurship Center of Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München.

Patricia is the President of Scribendi, a Canadian language services and technology company. She is also the co-founder of Associés Magnum Capital Partners, a search fund vehicle, and advises SMEs on M&A transactions. Her newest focus is the development and commercialization of proprietary AI technologies, such as the Scribendi Accelerator, an AI-based grammar error correction tool for professional editors (Scribendi.ai).

In her previous roles, Patricia has been active in the international development scene, launching and operating financial institutions in several East African countries and in Latin America for the Desjardins Group. She believes in doing good and doing well.

Patricia is an MBA graduate from the IESE Business School in Barcelona, Spain, and holds a Bachelor of Commerce from McGill University in Montreal, Canada. She is also a mother, a big sister, and a wife.

Sara is a Principal at TTCER Partners, an investment firm where she works directly with entrepreneurs looking to acquire and build great companies.  Prior to her current role, Sara spent seven years at the Stanford Graduate School of Business where she partnered with Stanford business school faculty to develop entrepreneurship case studies and oversaw all search fund-related activities, including curriculum development, search fund research, and the first-ever search fund CEO conference.  Sara received her BA in Human Biology and MBA from Stanford, she serves as a board member for several search-acquired companies, and she is the co-founder of the Women’s Search Network.

Jan is the Managing Partner of Vonzeo Capital, an investment firm that invests in Search Funds. For nearly two decades, Jan worked in the financial industry, including Salomon Brothers, Merrill Lynch and Goldman Sachs where he managed money in equity and fixed income markets as well as advised hedge funds in a variety of strategies. He is a Visiting Professor at IESE Business School, and a Finance Lecturer at the Haas School of Business, University of California Berkeley. Jan holds a LL.B. and LL.M. from the KULeuven, an MBA from IESE Business School and a PhD in Finance from the University of Essex. He holds the ICD.D Designation for corporate directors and has served the first battalion Para-Commando as well as NATO’s Special Intervention Forces. Jan holds both Commando A and Parachutist A military credentials.

José is Co-CEO and Co-Founder of QMC Telecom International Holdings LLC, a multinational provider of wireless infrastructure. Preceding that, he was CEO and Co-founder of VIU Media until the sale of the company to Lamar Advertising in 2006. At the time of the sale, VIU Media was Puerto Rico’s largest locally owned outdoor advertising company, and, prior to becoming President of VIU Media, he was Co-Founder and President of Quest Management Corporation, a search fund formed to identify, acquire, and operate a company in Puerto Rico. Previously, Jose worked with KPMG Peat Marwick in their middle-market M&A Advisory Group, UBS in Zurich, and Chase Manhattan Bank. Jose and his business partner were awarded the 2004 Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award for Puerto Rico. He has served on several boards of directors and received his undergraduate degree from Babson College and an MBA from the University of Michigan.

Will Thorndike is the Managing Partner of The Cromwell Harbor Partnership, a private investment company with a variety of long-term holdings. Prior to Cromwell Harbor, Thorndike founded Housatonic Partners, a leading private equity firm with offices in Boston and San Francisco known for exceptionally long investment holding periods.

Will is a Founding Principal at TTCER, a private investment partnership, a co-Founder at Compounding Lab, an investment collaboration focused on long term consolidations, and a lead investor at Banyan Software, a related platform in the vertical market software industry. He is Chairman of the Board at CNX Resources, and the Co-Chairman of EverArc Holdings.

Will is Research Advisor to Wellington Management’s Public Permanent Capital investment strategy and Co-Founder of Sun Mountain Partners, a public market investing partnership. He is also a Director of several private companies, including QMC Telecom. He is a Founder and Jury Member for The Singleton Prize for CEO Excellence, serves as a Trustee for The Cromwell Harbor Foundation, WGBH, College of the Atlantic, and the Land and Garden Preserve, and is the President of David R. Godine, Publisher.