We are always looking
for new talent and
to add diversity to our team

Federico Canciani

Managing Partner

Federico most recently spent c. 14 years with Oaktree Capital Management in the Opportunities Funds in London, focusing on a broad spectrum of investment styles.

Previous experience includes M&A and corporate finance with Goldman Sachs International and private equity with different investment managers.

Federico qualified with a Laurea degree in Business Administration at Bocconi University in Milan.

Tianzhi Li

Investment Partner

Tianzhi most recently spent c. 10 years with Volaris Group, an operating company of Constellation Software Inc., specializing in mid-market software and technology buyouts across Europe and North America.  He has completed over 30 transactions, leading Volaris’ entry into numerous vertical markets including financial services, education, real estate, professional services and marine. 

Tianzhi is a Canadian national, fluent Mandarin (Chinese) speaker and holds an MBA from INSEAD. 

José Vidal de Sousa

Vice President - Origination

José holds a horizontal role focused on origination, building and maintaining relationships with management teams, advisors and investors, and helping with deal execution when needed. José will also be proactively mapping out the breadth of investable trends and themes, organizing, sizing, and identifying areas of interest within B2B technology.
 
José joined GTO on July the 20th 2020 after c. 5 years with Scottish Equity Partners where he was focused on deal origination as well as deal support. A Portuguese national and an entrepreneur at heart, José co-founded VEECEE, a networking event management platform for technology investors. José holds a master’s degree from LBS.

Jack Walker

Vice President

Jack joined GTO Partners in 2021 after working at Thomas H. Lee (THL) Partners in Boston and Bank of America Merrill Lynch in New York. At THL, Jack was focused on Private Equity transactions in B2B software, tech-enabled and services in the US and Europe. At BAML, Jack was part of the Financial Sponsors Coverage Group working with major domestic and international Private Equity clients. Jack also worked with Solstice Power Technologies, a Cambridge, MA based Cleantech startup where he worked directly with the co-founders primarily in business development. Jack holds a BA from Harvard College and an MBA from Harvard Business School.

Emilia Studencka

Associate

Emilia joined GTO in 2021 after spending four years at ING in Warsaw and London.

At ING Emilia was part of the M&A Advisory team where she focused on cross-border transactions in the technology, business and consumer services sectors.

Emilia is a Polish national and holds an MBA degree from London Business School.

Ruwanthie Jayakody

Chief Financial Officer / Chief Operating Officer

Ruwanthie joined GTO Partners in 2022. With over 10 years’ experience in Private Equity, Ruwanthie joined GTO from NEO Investment Partners where she was the Head of Finance, responsible for the Investor reporting and administration for the Fund and other underlying investment vehicles.

Ruwanthie is a qualified Chartered Management Accountant and holds an MSc in International Financial Management from Queen Mary, University of London.

John Herr

Operating Advisor

John has served as CEO, Senior Executive, Board Member and Non-Executive Chair for many growth-stage software and technology companies backed by private equity, growth equity and venture capital firms. He has an excellent track record as a technology executive leader in various “go-to-market” roles including sales, marketing, M&A, international markets, channels & partnerships and product management.

John is currently CEO of Arcoro, a $50m cloud software business that serves 10k+ active customers in the SMB construction market for time & attendance, talent management and core HR. He is also a board member of 2 SPACs – VACQ and VACQU. 

Prior to this, John was CEO at Avetta for five years, having sold the company in 2018 to a consortium that included WCAS and TCV.  During his tenure, Avetta grew its top-line from $20m to $150m as well as focusing on increasing the profitability of the business.  With 100k+ active customers in over 100+ countries, Avetta provides cloud software that manages risk, safety, health, environmental and sustainability for industrial supply chain on a global basis. 

John holds a BA in Economics from Harvard University, as well as an MBA from Harvard Business School and is based in the US.

Ian Hurst

Operating Advisor

Ian Hurst is currently an Advisory Board Member for several technology growth equity companies, including companies in digital banking, crypto asset accounting and payments. He has extensive experience globally in technology and financial services.

Ian was the former General Manager of IBM’s Global Financial Services organisation.
In this role, Ian was responsible for IBM’s overall relationship with major financial services firms around the globe.

Prior to IBM, Ian was a partner with McKinsey & Company, where he was a long-standing leader in McKinsey’s Financial Institutions Practice. During his 12 years at McKinsey, Ian served many leading investment and retail banks on strategy, organisation, operations, and technology related issues.  

Ian holds an MBA from Wharton where he graduated with distinction and received a degree from Cambridge University in engineering.

Eduardo Sanchez

Operating Advisor

Over the last four years, Eduardo has served as an Independent Board Director and Chairman of fast-growing software companies (such as Contentsquare, Empathy.co and Toucan Toco), working closely with their founders and CEOs as an Advisor. Previously, he was the President and CEO of RichRelevance, a leader in CX and Personalization, where he led the transformation of the company from a single product vendor into a Customer Experience Platform provider. Prior to this, Eduardo served as Executive Vice President at MicroStrategy, where he was an early member of the leadership team and played a critical role in the development of the company, spearheading its foray into new lines of business and international expansion.    

Eduardo received a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from the University of La Plata in Argentina and a M.S. in Systems Engineering from George Mason University in Virginia. He is based in New York City.

Nils Schander

Senior Advisor – Nordics

Nils has over 15 years’ experience in Private Equity, Growth Equity and M&A, having been involved in several transactions and investments primarily in the Nordics and the UK. Most recently Nils was a Director at Mayfair Equity Partners based in London, where he was responsible for covering the Nordic region, and focused on investment opportunities in the technology and consumer sectors. Nils was previously a Principal at ICG, the LSE listed private equity investor, and an Executive Director in the Private Equity Group at Goldman Sachs, where he focused on secondary private equity and direct investments across multiple industries, geographies, and growth stages. He was also an investment professional at The Riverside Company and at EQT in Stockholm, investing in mid-sized companies in the Nordics. Nils started his career in Investment Banking at Goldman Sachs in London as a member of the Nordic team. Nils graduated from the Stockholm School of Economics with a MSc degree in Business Administration and Economics. Nils is also a CEMS graduate from HEC Paris.

Joost Schardijn

Senior Advisor – Benelux

Joost is a Senior Advisor for GTO covering the Benelux market. 

Over the last 12 years, Joost has worked in private equity, most recently as Head of Disciplined Growth at Clermont Group where he held several board seats. Previously Joost served as Business Transformation Officer at Unit4, where he also led M&A and post-merger integration of several technology add-ons. Joost started his career as a strategy consultant with McKinsey & Co and Booz Allen Hamilton. 

Joost holds an MBA from Insead and a MSc in Economics from Erasmus University Rotterdam.  

Mads Jensen

Technology Advisor

Mads is the Managing Partner and founder of Superseed, an early stage venture fund based in London, UK. A British and Danish national, Mads’ role with GTO is to keep an eye on early stage technology to identify early in advance trends that may be relevant for GTO portfolio companies as well as potential targets.

Mads started his career with IBM in various roles, from M&A integration to full P&L responsibility. Other experiences include CEO and Co-Founder of Sefaira, an enterprise software business focused on high-performance building design.

Mads is also the author of multiple US patents in data and SaaS and holds a BSc from Copenhagen Business School and an MBA from Insead.

Hussein Kanji

Technology Advisor

Hussein is a Founding Partner at Hoxton Ventures, an early stage venture investor that backed early rounds of unicorns such as Darktrace, Babylon Health and Deliveroo.

Hussein’s role with GTO is identifying early technology trends that could impact GTO portfolio companies as well as potential targets and help with due diligence pre-acquisition.

Hussein started his career in various technology roles on the West Coast, including with Sun Microsystems and Microsoft Corporation as Senior Manager in Corporate Strategy. He also helped form Safe-View (acquired by L-3), Radiance Technologies (acquired by Comcast), and Studio Verso (acquired by KPMG). Prior to setting up Hoxton Ventures, he spent c. 4 years with Accel Partners in London.

Hussein holds an MBA from London Business School, and an undergraduate degree from Stanford University.

Angelica Donati

Industry Specialist – Property and Infrastructure

Angelica is a real estate entrepreneur and a property technology founder, investor, and contributor to some of the most prestigious property publications. Her role with GTO is to help identifying current trends and areas of interest in property and infrastructure technology as well as helping with commercial due diligence in the same sectors.

Angelica started her career at Goldman Sachs, then co-founded a technology business in the UK and most recently set up Donati Immobiliare Group, an international development company of which she is the CEO.

Angelica is a contributor to Forbes and Property Week. She is also a G20 Young Entrepreneurs' Alliance delegate. In 2019, she became an advisory partner at the property technology VC fund manager, Concrete Ventures.

Angelica holds a BSc from LSE and an MBA from Oxford University's Said Business School.

Toby Triebel

Industry Specialist – Fintech

Toby is currently a member of the Executive Board and Head Digital Investing at Vontobel, a global investment manager specialising in wealth management, active asset management and investment solutions.

Prior to joining Vontobel, Toby ran the European business of Wealthsimple, a digital financial services platform backed by Power Financial Corporation, Allianz X, and TCV, amongst others.

Toby was co-founder and CEO at Spotcap, an online lending platform to SMEs that was included in the top 50 Leading Global FinTech Innovators by KPMG. He helped grow the business to 100 employees across five countries and continues to support Spotcap as an advisor.

Toby's previous experiences include roles at Goldman Sachs corporate finance, and Finisterre Capital.

He holds a MSc in economics from Cambridge University and a BSc in economics from the LSE. Toby has published several articles in various publications including Tech Crunch and VentureBeat and is a regular speaker at industry conferences.

Carla Vass

Industry Specialist – Transportation and Logistics

Carla has experience in transportation and logistics and her role is to work with GTO to identify trends and opportunities as well as help with due diligence in such industries.

Carla is a founder and CEO at Civi, who develop ground breaking solutions in the areas of personal security and safety.

Prior to Civi, Carla spent two years at Waymo, leading commercialization of autonomous technology in ride-hailing and logistics.

Before this, she spent five years at Uber, first building the UberX business in NYC and then launching UberRUSH, Uber's first logistics product. She was part of the founding UberEATS team, and from 2015-17 was responsible for global deal strategy and execution.

Carla began her career at Goldman Sachs and holds a BA from Columbia University.