About us

One of the founders of Braveheart, Geoffrey is a well known business angel and deal maker. Geoffrey has written columns on investment for various national broadsheets and regularly speaks at business events in Scotland. Other than Braveheart, he is a director of NESTech (the challenge fund of the universities of St Andrews, Dundee, and Aberdeen), and sits on the advisory board of EPSRC (a steering body for innovation in UK Biotechnology). His contribution to Scottish businesses was recognised by the receipt of a special Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year (Scotland) award in 2008.
More on Ernst & young award...

Carolyn oversees Braveheart’s investment operations. She has an honours degree in accountancy from the University of Stirling and is a Chartered Secretary. She spent five years working in insolvency, before moving to business development and investment. After five years working in private equity with LINC Scotland, the national association for business angels in Scotland, she joined Braveheart in 2000.

In addition to overseeing Braveheart’s finance function, Colin serves as Company Secretary for the Group. He joined Braveheart in 2008 from Digital Bridges Ltd, a leading global provider of mobile entertainment software applications to the mobile telecommunications industry. At Digital Bridges Colin was Chief Financial Officer and Company Secretary, and before that Chief Operating Officer. Prior to his role at Digital Bridges, Colin worked as Finance Director at Vision Group plc, a LSE listed Edinburgh University technology spin-out which pioneered CMOS imaging.

Richard is responsible for implementing Braveheart’s marketing strategy. Richard spent his early career with BZW training as a Fund manager. He subsequently joined the Army in 1974 and retired from the Black Watch in 1991. Following this he returned to fund management, starting at Brown Shipley Stockbrokers and going on to become a Director at Mercury Asset Management and Cazenove. He joined Braveheart in 2008 from Kaupthing Singer and Friedlander, where he served as a Director since 2006.

Andrew is the first point of contact for both existing and new clients. Following an early training in commercial banking, he spent some 22 years working in the merchant banking sector in Scotland. His initial focus was with money market operations, but he subsequently moved into corporate lending. A career change took Andrew into stockbroking, where for ten years he managed clients advisory and discretionary portfolios. He subsequently joined Braveheart in November 2003.

Judy oversees the monitoring and assessing of Braveheart’s portfolio. Prior to joining Braveheart in April 2008 she was part of 3i’s Small and Medium Sized Investment Team where she worked successfully with management teams and non-executive directors in order to drive change while enhancing and crystallising value. She has many years experience of working with companies in a wide range of sectors and of dealing with the many issues arising from minority equity positions.

Stephen provides in-house legal services for all aspects of our investment portfolio. He has been a member of the Braveheart team since April 2008. Stephen studied for his law degree and master's degree in European & International trade law at the University of Leicester and trained with Maclay Murray & Spens in London qualifying as an English solicitor in September 2001. He became an associate with Maclays in Edinburgh in 2007, practicing a wide variety of corporate work with particular expertise in private equity, joint ventures, funds and partnerships.

Lesley has a PhD in biomedical research and a BSc (Hons) in biochemistry from the University of Dundee. She has worked in post-doctoral research at Harvard University, Boston and at the Western General Hospital, Edinburgh. After leaving academia she spent three years in the Innovation Grants Unit at the Scottish Executive before joining Braveheart in 2006.

Jennifer deals with the day to day financial administration of Braveheart’s business. She has an honours degree from the University of Abertay, Dundee and qualified as a member of the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants in July 2002. She spent two years working for Scottish Courage Ltd as a commercial accountant in their Perth office, then moved to their Edinburgh site as a management accountant for a further two years before joining Braveheart in 2005.

In addition to supporting Geoffrey, Cara is responsible for co-ordinating corporate communications. She has a BA in Business Development from the University of Abertay, Dundee. Prior to joining Braveheart in 2005 Cara worked as a hotel sales co-ordinator for four years and before that for Scottish and Southern Energy plc in a customer liaison capacity.

Lynn manages Braveheart's day to day office administration, as well as providing EA support to Carolyn. Lynn graduated from The Robert Gordon University in 2002 with a BA (Hons) in Fine art and following this spent three years with the Bank of Scotland and a further year with Norwich Union building her skills within office administration roles.