Meet the Team

Jonathan created Finance Tree with Peter Hiscocks in 2008. A specialist in investment readiness, concept and seed finance, Jonathan has a background in business development and of technology with extensive experience of the Japanese market. He has raised over £30m in venture capital and created more than 6 venture funds and worked as a director in several. He is also a founder-director of the venture capital company Rivers Capital Partners www.riverscap.com and member of the Entrepreneurs Forum. He also currently Head of Council at Josephine Butler College, Durham University.

John was the Founder of E-Synergy and instrumental in creating Rivers Capital Partners with Jonathan Gold in 2009.After a career as an electronics engineer and research manager, he led the MBO of Thorn EMI Central Research Laboratories, successfully floating the buy-out vehicle, Scipher, on the main London Stock Exchange in February 2000 at a capitalisation of €450m.He developed spinout companies from Scipher technology and has special expertise in exploiting commercial value in intellectual property. John is also a business angel investor and on the board of several technology companies including OLED-T Ltd.

Peter is a fellow founder of Finance Tree and Rivers Capital Partners. He developed and ran the £2m course programme of NStar Finance and Business our investment readiness programme. He is a Director of the Judge Business School and is managing several research projects on the success factors for new hi tech business ventures. Peter is the principal inventor on six patents, is Chairman of one hi-tech company and is on the Board of three others: he has achieved two successful exits. He is an active business angel and on the advisory board of a Venture Capital firm. At the University of Cambridge Peter was Director of Cambridge Enterprise (the commercialisation arm of the University of Cambridge), and prior to that was the first Director of the Cambridge Entrepreneurship Centre.

Chris enjoyed a successful fifteen year career as a trader. He was employed by Goldman Sachs as an equity trader in London, New York and Frankfurt between 1993 and 2006. He then worked as a proprietary trader at Merrill Lynch Strategic Investments Group between 2006 and 2008. Since then Christopher has worked for The Institute of Trading and Portfolio Management as a trading mentor. Christopher holds a First class degree in Natural Sciences and PhD in Chemistry from Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge University.

John has worked worldwide in business, enterprise and regeneration consultancy for over 25 years, with experience in many countries. He has track in consultancy for large corporates and SMEs, as well as extensive experience of project managing publicly funded enterprise development projects and organisations. John’s work covers strategy and delivery from shaping policy to managing delivery organisations to mentoring managers. A specialist in issues relating to Small and Medium Enterprises, Private Sector Development and business growth. He has provided consultancy in a range of sectors – such as nuclear, defence, oil and gas, chemicals and tourism. John has an MBA and is a Fellow of the Institute of Leadership and Management and the Institute of Enterprise and Entrepreneurs.