0100 Europe 2025

Joaquin is currently Head of Secondaries at the European Investment Fund, where he joined in 2008 as part of the primaries lower mid-market investment team. At EIF he has led and closed transactions in Buyout, Development Capital, Growth, Credit & VC strategies, having successfully executed primaries, buy-side and sell-side secondaries (including single asset and multi-asset GP-leds, LP-tenders, preferreds, single LP-led and portfolio LP-led transactions) as well as co-investments across Europe. As part of the EIF’s private institutional investor programme (AMUF), a platform which has raised over EUR 1.6bn to date, Joaquin led and closed a EUR 100m private equity secondaries fund focused on GP-led solutions and acquisition of single LP positions in the lower end of the mid-market. Regular panellist on secondaries, primaries and co-investments across Europe. Holds a Degree in Law from Nebrija University, an International MBA from IE Business School and the Private Equity Certification Program from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. Fluent in English (proficiency), French (mother language) and Spanish (mother language).

Ara is a Managing Director at Teachers’ Venture Growth (TVG), the C$7.5bn venture growth capital arm of Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan (c.C$250b AUM). He is responsible for executing TVG's strategy for direct investments in Europe where he leads its fintech and B2B SaaS sector investments, working closely with companies including Alan, ComplyAdvantage, and Lendable. He partners with founders with bold missions, looking to expand their product offering, scale geographically, and become the leaders in their markets. Ara previously worked at Temasek, Ares Management and Credit Suisse.

Paul Atefi (London) joined KKR in 2017, is Head of Origination for Credit & Markets in Europe and is a member of the European Direct Lending Investment Committee. Prior to joining KKR, Mr. Atefi was on the acquisition and leveraged finance team at J.P. Morgan, focusing on financial sponsor clients with additional responsibility for financial institutional group corporate clients, having developed that leveraged lending vertical. Prior to J.P. Morgan, Mr. Atefi was at RBS, initially on the leveraged finance team and latterly in the global restructuring group. Mr. Atefi is a qualified chartered accountant, having qualified with PwC on their transaction services team.

Markus Benzler heads the Multi-Managers Private Equity team (MMPE) of Real Estate & Private Markets (REPM) within UBS Asset Management (UBS-AM). In this role, he covers investment selection and portfolio management of several diversified global privateequity mandates as well as UBS-AM’s private equity (PE) fund-of-fund businesses. Investments typically cover venture, growth capital, buyouts and special situations done as primaries, secondaries and co-investments in North America, Europe and APAC. Markus is the Chairman of the Multi-Managers Private Equity Investment Committee and voting member of the Multi-Managers Infrastructure Investment Committee. He joined UBS in 2005 as an investment selection analyst for Private Equity. Prior to joining UBS, Markus worked at Bain & Company in Munich for six years, where he conducted a full range of projects mainly in PE, banking, and the industrial area. Project types included commercial due diligence projects for PE funds, corporate strategy design, company restructuring, and operational improvement.

Henrik joined Elevate, Verdane’s team of in-house operational experts, as Chief Technology Officer in June 2020. As CTO of Verdane Elevate, Henrik supports the technology and product organisations in our portfolio with architectural and organisational expertise to help them successfully deliver on high-priority projects. Through Henrik, Verdane connects relevant persons within our holdings to leverage the technology and methodology knowledge present in the Verdane portfolio and to help all its companies scale and succeed. Henrik is an experienced CTO and has been key in scaling several SaaS companies through his expertise in both Agile methods and System Architecture.

Matthieu Baret, Managing Partner in charge of Venture, joined the Group in 2005. He has overseen over 40 investments and is primarily active in the telecoms/media, software, B2B sectors. Before that Matthieu has worked 10 years in the telecom sector, mainly for carriers. He regularly speaks on entrepreneurship at Centrale-Supelec and Dauphine. Matthieu is a graduate of CENTRALE-SUPELEC, and holds a Master of Science in Electrical Engineering from Georgia Tech (Atlanta, USA) and an MBA from INSEAD.

Mattias focuses on the European primary portfolio and is involved in the sourcing, screening, execution, monitoring, and exiting of growth and buyout co-investments. Prior to joining Adams Street Partners, he was a Managing Director in the Private Equity Advisory & Asset Management division of the StepStone Group where he led European primary, secondary, and co-investments. Previously, he was a Principal in the Private Equity Secondaries group of Greenpark Capital, as well as a Private Equity Analyst at Lehman Brothers. He was also a Sergeant with the Amphibious Battalion of the Swedish Marines. Mattias is a member of Adams Street’s Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) Committee.