The Global Institutional Distribution team and key employees
Our Global Institutional Distribution team work closely with institutional investors across the Octopus Group. They will be your first port of call if you’d like to find out more about our institutional investment capabilities. We manage money for around 100 institutional investors and profiles of these key employees are also detailed below.
Leadership team

Benjamin Davis
Prior to Octopus, Benjamin invested across a range of sectors at YFM Equity Partners and Interregnum, and previously worked in technology and consulting. He has an MBA from the University of Cambridge and a Bachelor of Commerce (Hons) from the University of Auckland, New Zealand.

Jonathan Digges
He joined Octopus in February 2015 as Product Head for Octopus Inheritance Tax Service. Before joining Octopus, Jonathan ran a team at Lloyds that looked after the bank’s non-core equity portfolio. He also undertook stints at BNP Paribas, Robert Fleming and PricewaterhouseCoopers.
Jonathan is a qualified Chartered Accountant and has an MA in Geography from the University of Oxford.

Chris Hulatt
Chris spends his time championing British entrepreneurialism and promoting policy ideas to drive business growth, by meeting UK business leaders and stakeholders such as MPs and government ministers.
Before founding Octopus, Chris led one of the global equity research teams at Mercury Asset Management. He has a first class MA in Natural Sciences from Cambridge University and is a Chartered Financial Analyst.

Jennifer Ockwell
Jennifer joined Octopus with a 20-year track record in institutional fundraising, working with some of the industry’s most successful fund managers, including Franklin Templeton and Janus Henderson, where she served as Head of UK Institutional.

Simon Rogerson
Much of his time is spent looking for new opportunities for Octopus, such as moving into the commercial energy sector with Octopus Energy.
Before founding Octopus in 2000, Simon spent two years working at Mercury Asset Management. He holds a first-class MA in Modern Languages from St. Andrews University and is a Chartered Financial Analyst.
Global Institutional Distribution team

Caroline Turner
Caroline joined Octopus following a 15-year career at Willis Towers Watson (WTW) and has brought a wealth of diverse experience that spans investment consulting and strategic sales; including designing investment strategy and solutions for institutional investors. She also focused on helping clients establish their ESG values and creating impact through their investments. Most recently, Caroline was in a global people leadership role, in charge of setting the Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DEI) strategy and shaping the culture of the business.
Caroline graduated from the University of Exeter where she studied Mathematics and she also holds the Investment Management Certificate.

Harry Penberthy
Harry joined Octopus following a seven-year stint as Group Head of Marketing at Triple Point Investments. He raised retail, institutional and public capital over five different investment strategies. He also led the communications function for the consortium running the government HNIP and GHNF (Heat Networks) projects.
He has brought a wealth of experience that spans both listed and unlisted funds, with a clear focus on impact investment. Harry’s teams have won multiple awards for marketing and communications, both locally and internationally.
Prior to his time in the UK, Harry was a founder of Fintech insurer BrightRock (Acquired by Sanlam) and was Executive Creative Director of Vitality’s global brand agency.
Harry graduated from the University of Johannesburg, where he studied Graphic Design and from Vega where he obtained a post grad BA hons in Brand Communication.

Angela Gyulveszy
Prior to joining Octopus she was at Pensions Infrastructure Platform (PiP), where she was Investor Relations director, responsible for establishing new institutional investor client relationships for fund and co-investments. Before PiP, Angela worked at AXA Real Assets and was responsible for business development for new investor markets and products.
She is a graduate of the Corvinus University Budapest and is a Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst.

Anne-Sophie Best
Anne-Sophie previously spent ten years at Hedgebay – a secondary advisory firm – where she was heading up the European office. From 2007-2011 Anne-Sophie worked as an Institutional Business Director at Castlestone Management – a global macro hedge fund – and prior to that she was in Institutional Sales at Lombard Odier IM in Paris.
Anne-Sophie holds a MS in Economics and International Finance from the Université Louis Lumiere Lyon 2, and a post-graduate degree in International Trade from Université Paris I Pantheon-Sorbonne.

Jason Bermont-Penn
Prior to that, he spent 4 years running his own retail start-up and was previously covering hedge funds and institutional investors as an equity sales-trader at UBS.
Jason obtained a 1st class honours degree in Mechanical Engineering at UCL and is a qualified financial adviser (DipFS).

Robert Cashmore MBE
Prior to Octopus, Robert was a senior British diplomat specialising in Gulf investment into the UK. He spent four years as the UK Government’s Head of Investment for Saudi Arabia, based in Riyadh, and two years as the Director for Investment Middle East, based in the UAE, during which time he played a leading role in securing the £10bn UAE-UK Sovereign Investment Partnership. He received an MBE in the 2020 Queen’s Honours for services to UK Trade and Investment.
Prior to Government, Robert spent five years in the City of London working for a number of investment banks, including UBS and Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Robert holds degrees from the University of Oxford, the University of Cambridge and the London School of Economics.

Semi Kim
In her previous role as an Inward Investment Manager at the UK Department for International Trade, Semi provided strategic advice to large UK infrastructure fund managers on distribution to large Korean institutional investors such as pension funds, asset managers and insurance companies.
Semi has a degree in English Linguistics and Literature from Sahmyook University in Korea and an MA in International Relations from University of Warwick.

Tom O'Hare
Tom is a graduate of the University of Reading where he studied Politics and International Relations.

Emma Whittingham
Prior to joining Octopus, Emma spent 10 years at Institutional Investor in London and New York. As Director of Investor Relations and Content she established and built relationships with single family offices, launching Institutional Investor’s private network of family offices in 2013.
Emma has a Bachelor of Laws (LLB) (Hons) from Liverpool John Moore’s University.
Octopus Sustainable Infrastructure team

Rob Skinner
Rob joined Octopus in 2013 as Head of Valuations, and then became Head of the Sustainable Infrastructure team in 2019.
Prior to this, he was a director in the M&A team at RBS working across various sectors specialising in infrastructure and utilities.
Rob graduated from Warwick University where he read Mathematics.

Sean McLachlan
Co-head of Octopus Sustainable Infrastructure Fund
Prior to joining Octopus he was Senior Director and Fund Manager at Aviva Investors, responsible for infrastructure equity mandates across multiple sustainable infrastructure sectors, as well as investment strategy and origination activities.
Sean was also previously responsible for investment strategy and origination as Senior Director at Balfour Beatty Investments and he also advised on corporate and project finance transactions across the renewables, energy and utilities sectors at RBC Capital Markets.
He holds a Bachelor of Commerce degree in Finance from the Haskayne School of Business, University of Calgary and is also a CFA charter holder.

Lukasz Michalak
Co-head of Octopus Sustainable Infrastructure Fund
Since joining Octopus in 2013, he has led multiple transactions in the energy transition, telecoms and financial sectors. He was a part of the Octopus Group’s Principal Investment Team. Lukasz also co-founded a lending business.
Before joining Octopus, Lukasz was a consultant at Arup, advising on infrastructure deals.
Lukasz holds two master’s degrees in Mechanical Engineering and practised engineering with a focus on sustainability.

Ed Fellows
Before joining Octopus in 2010, Ed was a finance lawyer at SJ Berwin for five years before relocating to Los Angeles as head of business affairs for CineFinance LLC, a subsidiary of Houston Casualty Company.
He also holds the Investment Management Certificate.

Sarah Grant
Before joining Octopus in 2013, she previously held roles at SocGen and Rothschild.
She has an MA in History from the University of Edinburgh.

Isobel Burlington
Before joining Octopus, Isobel was a Senior Manager at PwC in transaction services performing due diligence on small and medium sized companies in an array of sectors.
She is also a chartered accountant.

Ben Thompson
Prior to joining Octopus, Ben spent five years in investment banking with a focus on equity capital markets across multiple sectors.
Ben is a chartered accountant and studied mathematics at the University of Nottingham.

Matt Sheppee
He joined Octopus Renewables in 2014 where he led 10 investments into UK solar projects and the refinancing of a 750MW solar portfolio. He later moved internally to Octopus’ Principal Investment team where he was responsible for Octopus Group balance sheet investments.
Prior to Octopus, Matthew worked at Ludgate Investments, a specialist private equity firm focussing on growth stage companies in the “cleantech” sector.
Matthew graduated with a first-class degree in mathematics from the University of Oxford and has passed all three CFA exams.

Philip Reavley
He works to find new companies for investment as well as managing our existing portfolio.
Phil joined Octopus in 2016. Before this, he worked at KPMG in both the audit and M&A teams.

Michael Blake
support.
Before joining Octopus, Mikey was a Senior Associate at Pricoa Private Capital, a private debt and equity investment firm working across a range of sectors. Prior to that he worked for two years in International Development, doing policy research on urbanisation in low-income countries.
Mikey graduated from Oxford University with a first-class degree in Philosophy, Politics and Economics and a Master’s Degree in economics.

Robert de Villiers
Robert joined Octopus in 2019 and previously worked in the Octopus Real Estate team where he supported the team with fund structuring, reporting and transactions.
Before joining Octopus in 2019, Robert worked at KPMG in both the financial services audit and the Financial Engineering Group focusing on commercial real estate as well as Corporate & Investment Banking clients.
Robert is a Chartered Accountant & CFA qualified professional. He has also completed the FMVA certification.

Alice Keddie
Alice joined Octopus in 2022, having spent four years in Santander’s (SCIB) Structured Finance team. Here, she focused on Debt Advisory for and lending to large-scale energy transition and infrastructure projects.
Alice graduated from St. Andrews where she read and achieved a first in International Relations.

Matt Armes
Matt joined Octopus in 2015 and was previously an Asset Manager in the Octopus renewable energy team. In this role he managed a portfolio of over 100 solar sites and supported equity and debt transactions.
Matt holds a master’s degree in Chemical Engineering from the University of Birmingham.
Octopus Energy Generation team

Alex Brierley
Prior to joining Octopus, Alex was Director in the Energy and Environmental Infrastructure team at EY LLP where he provided a wide range of corporate and project finance services to leading players in the Renewable Energy industry. Alex is a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland, qualifying in 2003.

Matt Setchell
Prior to Octopus, Matt was an investment manager at Shore Capital and a manager at PwC. He has an MBA from Cambridge University and an Economics degree from Bristol University.
Octopus Ventures team

Alliott Cole
Alliott worked closely with the food e-commerce business Graze (acquired by Unilever), the ecommerce platform Rangespan (acquired by Google), the machine learning tech startup Magic Pony (acquired by Twitter), the pet food company Tails.com (acquired by Nestle) and the property portal website Zoopla (that listed on LSE and was later acquired by SilverLake).

Malcolm Ferguson
Malcolm is a Non-Executive Director of various portfolio companies including BoughtbyMany, By Miles, DeadHappy, Metrasens, Segura, Semafone and Sofar Sounds. Prior to joining Octopus, Malcolm spent a number of years in the investment banking industry, firstly within the TMT team of Bank America Merrill Lynch in London then at GP Bullhound, a leading boutique investment bank, focusing exclusively on technology businesses.

Joe Stringer
Prior to joining Octopus, he led Google Health in the UK, and the Ventures and Healthcare practices for EY in the UK. At EY, he was the global healthcare supply chain leader, ran a UK team of 120 healthcare specialists and founded and jointly led three technology businesses in the UK NHS. He has led some of the most significant and high profile transformation programmes – for example a four year / £14bn programme to transform the NHS supply chain.

Kirsten Connell
Prior to joining Octopus Ventures, Kirsten ran CyLon, a deep tech accelerator programme investing and supporting over 60 startups. She was also part of the original Seedcamp team and part of the growth journey taking them from a portfolio of 30 startups to over 200.
Kirsten is an angel investor in some of the UK’s hottest cybersecurity startups inc. Tessian, Immersive Labs, Senseon, Cybersmart, Zamna, RiskLedger and eCora.

Richard Court
Richard has been an investor in UK and international SMEs since 2006. He previously worked in TPG’s direct lending fund, at RJD Partners, a UK-focused Private Equity fund, and at Dresdner Kleinwort in the Principal Finance group. He qualified as a chartered accountant with PwC and holds a first class degree in Banking and Finance from the University of Birmingham.
Octopus Real Estate team

Edward Clough

Andy Scott

Michael Toft
Prior to joining Octopus, Michael was at Lothbury Investment Management, where he spent over a decade as an Executive Director and Senior Fund Manager, managing institutional real estate funds, implementing a growth strategy and expanding the flagship fund by more than threefold. He has also worked at KBC Asset Management and Fuller Peiser, and has a degree in Land Economy from the University of Aberdeen.

Ludo Mackenzie
Prior to joining Octopus, Ludo was a Partner at Melford Capital Partners LLP, UK Property Director at Janus Henderson Investors, and an Associate Director at JLL. He has an Estate Management degree at Oxford Brookes University.

Kevin Beirne
Since receiving a Masters from Oxford Brookes School of the Built Environment, Kevin has clocked up over 25 years in the real estate development and healthcare sector. He was one of the founders of ARCO and has served as an advisory board member for the Homes and Communities Agency (Homes England) and spent five years on the National Housing Federations development committee.

Steve Matthews
