Team

Giles is a Partner at Briarwood Partners and focusses on the UK market. He has almost 25 years of experience of financial markets having started his career as a Financial Adviser with Chase de Vere in 2000. After 5 years at Chase de Vere Giles decided he wanted to "jump the fence" and work in Asset Management distribution.    Starting at Close Finsbury (part of the Close Brothers group) Giles moved to Cazenove Capital to cover clients in London & the Channel Islands and was responsible for distributing their range both Long Only, Long/Short Equity and Fixed Interest Funds and was part of a team that grew AUM from circa £4bn to circa £8bn. Giles left Cazenove following its acquisition by Schroders and joined Miton Group, again to cover London & the Channel Islands. Here he helped the business grow from approx. £2bn to approx. £5bn across his 6 years with the business. Giles left Miton upon its acquisition by Premier Asset Management and took on the role of Head of Sales & Marketing for SVM Asset Management and lead the team through the challenging time of COVID. Giles left SVM after 3 years following its acquisition my AssetCo.   Throughout his career in asset management Giles has specialised in raising assets for small or new launch funds in both the long and long/short space across a variety of asset classes and has an in-depth knowledge of this part of the market. Giles is a graduate of Gloucestershire University with a degree in Physical Geography & Sports Science. Outside of work Giles is married with 2 children and is a keen sportsman,  in particular skiing & ski touring, cricket and golf.

Natalie is a Partner at Briarwood Partners. She has 18+ years of experience and most recently ran the EMEA Capital Introductions team at Citi, where she spent 10 years. Previous to that, she focused on European allocators and asset managers within Capital Introductions at Merrill Lynch. She began her career on the buy side, working in sales and investor relations at GLG Partners. Throughout her career, Natalie has focused on sales and distribution advisory of alternative funds, into a European investor base. She has deep relationships with end allocators such as Endowments/ Foundations, Pensions and Family Offices. She also has extensive experience across intermediaries such as Family Offices, Private Wealth Managers, Investment Consultants and specialist Alternatives allocators. Her experience has allowed her to work across a wide variety of funds across different strategies and life cycles. Natalie has seen a wide spectrum of funds that have gone on to be successful with a number of paths to achieving that growth. In addition to the successes, she has seen a large number of firms fail. She believes that those that failed hold as valuable a lesson as those that succeeded. Natalie lives in London with her Bulgarian husband and two children. She graduated from the London School of Economics with a degree in Russian Joint Studies, and continued on to do an MSc in Russian and Post-Soviet Studies. Natalie is half French, half British, and speaks 6 languages (English, French, Spanish, Italian, Russian & Bulgarian). In her spare time, Natalie enjoys reading, hiking and learning about physics, history, and archaeology.

Morgan is a Sales Associate for Briarwood Partners. Primarily, he is involved in the distribution of Traditional and Alternative funds and supports the team with investor relations. He joined Briarwood Partners in July 2024. Prior to joining Briarwood Partners, Morgan worked at Murano Connect. Here, he developed an understanding of institutional capital raising within Asset Management. His role was focused on bridging the information gap between in-house business development teams and institutional investors, to help in raising capital. Morgan graduated from Nottingham Trent University with a degree in Business Management & Marketing. He is currently studying towards his CFA level 1. In his spare time, he enjoys sports and anything fitness related, including Golf, Tennis, Football, Wild Camping, and Cold-Water Swimming.

Ben is a Partner at Briarwood Partners. He has 22 years of experience in financial markets, nearly all of which has been dedicated to researching and investing in hedge funds. He has advised some of the world’s largest institutional investors on their hedge fund portfolios, as well as working with UHNW and HNW individuals. Ben’s extensive network complements his deep hedge fund knowledge, enabling him to deliver valuable insights and perspectives to his clients.   Most recently, Ben served as Co-Head of Hedge Fund Research at Aberdeen Group, where he led a seven-person analyst team across offices in London and New York. He was responsible for global coverage across Equity Long/Short, Quant, Event Driven, and Multi-Strategy funds and has a wealth of experience across offshore funds, SMAs, and regulated liquid alternatives, In addition to sourcing and diligencing hedge funds, he built and managed several fund-of-hedge fund portfolios, spanning commingled, bespoke and pan-alternative structures, during his 14 years at Aberdeen Group.   Prior to this, Ben was an analyst at RBS Asset Management from 2004 to 2010, focusing on Equity Long/Short and Event Driven strategies. He began his career at Coutts & Co, where after working as a private banking officer helping to manage HNW client relationships, he transitioned to hedge fund research in early 2003.   Ben holds an MSc in Health Promotion from Brunel University in London. He is married with 8-year-old twins and enjoys running, snowboarding, and playing racquet sports in his spare time.

Jim is a Partner at Briarwood Partners. He has 24 years of Financial Markets experience, the majority of which has been in Hedge Funds, both allocating and asset raising. The last 11 years have been spent at Bank of America where he was Managing Director, EMEA Head of Capital Advisory, assisting hedge funds with their asset raising plans globally across a multitude of strategies, mainly focused on Equity Long/Short, Event Driven and Multi-strategy funds. He has extensive relationships with both European and US investors, particularly within the Institutional and early stage space. His relationships predominantly span Endowments and Foundations, Pension Funds, Fund of Hedge Funds and Family Offices. Prior to BofA, Jim worked at both Olympia Capital and Cadogan Management as a hedge fund allocator. At Olympia he was Head of Equity Long Short and Event Driven investing and an Investment Committee member where he was responsible for sourcing, selecting and investment due diligence for hedge funds (including UCITS) on a global basis. At Cadogan Management, between 2006 and 2011, Jim was a senior research analyst on the European team focused on Long/Short Equity, Event Driven and Credit Long/Short, as well as Investment Committee member. Jim’s introduction to Hedge Funds was in 2004 when he joined KBC Alternative Investment Management, a $4.5bn Convertible Arbitrage and Credit Long/Short focused hedge fund, as part of their finance team. Jim started his career at Arthur Andersen (later Deloitte & Touche) in 1999 in their financial markets division. Jim graduated from Leeds University with a degree in Finance. He is a Chartered Account (ACA), holds the CAIA qualification and is based in Cape Town.

Ryan is the founder of Briarwood Partners. He has 17 years of Asset Management experience. Since 2010 Ryan has directly raised in excess of $2.5 bn+ of AUM and has extensive experience across traditional and alternative assets. He has a wide array of relationships across Family Offices, Institutions, Private Banks and Wealth Managers. He spent the previous 4.5 years with Bennelong Funds Management Group, who are a $8.2bn Australian headquartered multi-boutique Asset Manager, owned by a SFO. In December 2016 Ryan set up their London based subsidiary BennBridge. He led the Business Development function as Head of Business Development and was also heavily involved in sourcing new investment boutiques. At the time of Ryan’s departure, BennBridge had four investment boutique partnerships, 20+ employees in London and $1bn+ of AUM. Previously he was the Head of Institutional Sales at Bennelong Funds Management. Based in Melbourne, he was in charge of Institutional relationships globally and won the businesses first non-Australian mandate from a Hong Kong based institution. From 2010 to 2015 he worked for Cazenove Capital and Schroders following their acquisition of Cazenove Capital in 2013. At Cazenove he covered a Pan-European investor base and raised a significant amount of assets across their traditional and alternative asset strategies. At Schroders he was a Product Manager for their long/short strategies and was instrumental in helping grow the alternatives franchise within Schroders. Other roles included Coutts & Co, Barclays Wealth & Sanlam. Ryan graduated from Liverpool University with a degree in Modern History & Politics. In his spare time he is a keen sportsman and has a particular love of Cricket. He has a young family and also ran the 2017 Paris marathon raising nearly £5,000 for Water Aid.

Tom is Director of Distribution for Briarwood Partners. He has 10+ years of financial services experience working in senior marketing and distribution roles. Tom has spent the past 5 years with Contango Asset Management, a listed Australian business that partners with, and promotes, high-quality fund managers to the wholesale and intermediary channels of the Australian market. During his time with Contango, Tom directly contributed to growth in funds under management from $185m to over $1.2bn. Tom has been involved in the development and distribution of funds across all major asset classes including listed global equities, domestic equities, private credit, private equity, fixed income and alternative assets. Tom has extensive experience working with high- and ultra-high-net-worth individuals, family offices and intermediary clients. Previously Tom was General Manager, Investments at Switzer Financial Group where he was closely involved in the setup of Switzer Asset Management. Tom holds a Bachelor of Communications from Charles Sturt University and RG146, Managed Investments. Tom is fluent in French and has recently relocated to France with his French wife and two young children. Tom enjoys jazz music and loves being around the ocean. He enjoys all sports particularly surfing, Australian Football and golf.