François Lacoste is Managing Partner in charge of the Debt activity.

Prior to joining the Group in 2008, he worked in the Acquisition & Leverage Finance business at Fortis Bank, in France and Belgium, after having launched the Acquisition Finance department in France. He began his career in the Acquisition Finance department of Banque Worms (Deutsche Bank group).

François holds a degree from Paris-Dauphine University (Master II degree in Banking and Finance).

Giovanna is a Partner and Head of DACH at Altor Equity Partners. She focuses on mid-market investments in the Industrial and Business Services segments in the DACH region. Prior to joining Altor in 2018, she spent nearly 10 years at 3i in Germany. Giovanna started her career in M&A at Morgan Stanley and strategy consulting at McKinsey & Company in Frankfurt and London. Among her investments for Altor are Kaefer (family owned global insulation services business) and VTU (life science engineering business). Giovanna is engaged with Level20 (promotion of female investors in PE) and Invest Europe (Member of Mid Market Council).  

Isabella is a Vice President at Hg and focuses on software investments in the Regulatory & Compliance space. She works across Hg funds and portfolio companies to cover the Nordics and the UK software space driving new investment activity and portfolio M&A.

She joined Hg as a founding member of the Origination team. Prior to Hg, she worked as an investor at Allstate and began her career in banking at J.P. Morgan. She is Swedish and has spent over a decade in London.

Nicola leads the UK Deal Advisory business and is a Consumer Deals Partner with over 20 years of professional experience, almost exclusively in advising a range of corporate and private equity clients on M&A transactions.

With over three decades of distinguished service at Shell, Roland has built an illustrious career spanning roles across finance, acquisitions, divestments and business development in the global energy sector. Currently serving as the Senior Vice President of Acquisitions, Divestments & New Business Development for Downstream and Renewables in London, Roland leverages deep expertise to drive transformative growth and sustainable change. Prior to this, he served as the Senior Vice President of Finance for Global Mobility where he led strategic financial initiatives that enabled operational excellence worldwide.

Throughout his tenure, Roland has held key leadership positions including Vice President Finance for Global Marketing, Head of M&A Finance for Global Downstream, and General Manager Finance for EMEA Lubricants. Notably, he contributed to upstream operations as M&A Finance Manager for Nigeria, overseeing complex financial strategies to optimise value. Earlier in his career, he held various finance roles in Africa including Finance Manager for Cote d'Ivoire and Gabon Downstream, reflecting his deep international expertise and adaptability.

Professor Scott Moeller has been teaching at Bayes Business School since 2002. He is the founder and Director of the M&A Research Centre (https://www.bayes.city.ac.uk/faculties-and-research/centres/marc) and the former CEO and Director of Executive Education. Amongst other finance-related modules, he teaches the 'Mergers & Acquisitions' elective in the MBA and 'Corporate Finance' in the executive education programmes. He has also been a visiting lecturer at Imperial College (London) and Oxford University.

Scott is a frequent commentator on business issues related to M&A on television (BBC, CNN, Bloomberg, CNBC) and in the press (Financial Times, Sunday Times, Independent) and has written for the Wall Street Journal, the BBC and other publications. One of seven books received an award in the United States as one of the top 30 business books of the year in 2008 ('Intelligent M&A: Navigating the Mergers and Acquisitions Minefield' now in a second edition published in 2014) . His most recent book (co-authored) is 'The Deal Paradox: Mergers and Acquisitions Success in the Age of Digital Transformation', published in 2023.

Scott had a long career in banking prior to his move to academia. During his six years at Deutsche Bank, Scott was Global Head of the bank’s corporate venture capital unit, Managing Director of the Investment Bank's Global eBusiness Division and Managing Director of the department responsible for world-wide strategy and new business acquisitions. Scott worked first at Booz Allen & Hamilton Management Consultants for over 5 years and then at Morgan Stanley for over 12 years in New York, Japan, and then as co-manager and then member of the board of Morgan Stanley Bank AG in Germany. Scott has held a number of other board seats throughout Europe, Africa, Asia and the Americas and is currently a non-executive director on several boards.