Advisors

In addition to our full time team, ClearlySo works closely with an expert advisory board and a number of business partners. All have excellent track records in their chosen fields and play a crucial role in improving our service.

Suzanne Biegel

Suzanne is Catalyst at Large and serves as a Senior Adviser to ClearlySo in the UK, helping to launch ClearlySo's investment network. She sits on the Advisory Board for Investors' Circle in the US (where she was most recently CEO). She is Vice Chair of the Board of Directors of Confluence Philanthropy and sits on the board of Growth Philanthropy Network/Social Impact Exchange She also co-chairs the Values Led Investment group of Women Donors Network, and runs Women in Social Finance, a new group in London. She is a Catto Fellow at the Aspen Institute. Suzanne is a frequent emcee, speaker, and panelist in the impact investment arena. She brings more than 25 years of experience as an entrepreneur, investor, boardmember, and hands-on operational manager to her endeavors. In the 1990s, Suzanne was the CEO of IEC, an e-learning and communications firm, during which she and her business partner received the Entrepreneur of the Year and Women of the Year awards. Prior to that, Suzanne got her start in the corporate technology world working for IBM and then for the IBM/CBS/Sears startup Prodigy. Since selling IEC, Suzanne has been an active angel investor, philanthropist, and board member, and has played leadership roles in a variety of companies and projects. She also serves on the investment committee of the Patient Capital Collaborative, a collaborative angel investment fund in the US, which she help to launch. Ask her about The Women Effect. Suzanne holds degrees from the University of Pennsylvania and the Wharton Business School. A native New Yorker, Suzanne is now based in London with her husband, Daniel Maskit, a visual effects artist in the feature film world.

Luca Bosatta

Luca is currently using his 16 years experience at UBS Bank to launch pioneering projects in social investment. Over the last 10 years he has helped large institutional clients, designed a technology platform and was the managing director of an advisory business which became a market leader in portfolio analytics. In 2008 he left UBS to work in private equity funds which impact society both here in the UK and across the world. He passionately believes that business can change the world for the better and is putting that to the test in his latest project, Angello Capital Partners. Working with experienced business professionals in the UK and oversees, it aims to catalyse social investment in developing countries. The pilot project takes place in Europe’s poorest country, Moldova, but he plans to spin it out across the world.

Nicolo Brandolini

Nicolo Brandolini: has an excellent track record in equities and sales management with Lehmans Brothers, Bear Sterns and Oppenheimer. As European Co Head of Global Equities Department at Bear Sterns, he helped grow its equities business from a purely US base to a major player in the European market. He also oversaw Lehman’s expansion in the equities market within Italy and is currently putting his experience in the region to use advising Clearlyso on its operations in Italy.

Jonathan Brooks

Jonathan chairs our board of advisors.  He acts as a non-executive director of several companies, both listed and privately backed. Until 2002, he was CFO of ARM Holdings PLC and was part of the team which took it from startup to IPO and then on to the FTSE 100.

Matt Cooper

Matt brings expertise in corporate strategy formulation and implementation, organisational culture and design, and executive coaching and leadership. He was previously Principal Managing Director of Capital One Bank PLC until leaving the company in 2001. He now serves as a non-executive chairman or director with a range of companies in both the corporate and not for profit sector such as Octopus Investments, Carbon Search and The Mental Health Foundation.

Tim Farazmand

Tim has over 20 years experience in private equity with 3i, Royal Bank of Scotland and Catalyst Fund Management. Prior to joining 3i he worked with IBM and LDC. During his time there he served as Managing Director for its London office completing a number of significant transactions including GVA Grimley, NAH and JCC. He remains a non-executive director of Catalyst Fund Management & Research and provides advice on investment issues to ClearlySo.

Malcolm Gloak

Malcolm has over 30 years experience in private equity and venture capital, across a range of sectors. After a 28 year career at 3i, Malcolm left in 2003 and has since performed a number of roles as both chairman and non-executive director in public and private companies. He is Chairman of the Investment Committee of Catalyst Fund 1, a fund focused on UK-based social businesses.

Ella Heeks

Ella has spent her career proving that social and sustainable businesses can be successful. In 2000 she became Managing Director of Abel and Cole. Under her leadership the company grew from having an annual turnover of £500,000, with 20 staff, to an annual turnover of £30million and 350 staff. Abel and Cole also won a number of awards for its ethical and sustainable business models. She stepped down from her role as MD in 2007, but stayed on as Ethics Director until late 2008. Ella also helped to launch the Organic Trade Board, serving as its Vice Chair. She speaks on entrepreneurship and ethical business and provides coaching and consultancy to ethical start-ups.

Fleur Heyns (née Gremmen)

Fleur Heyns’ background is in investment banking, with JP Morgan in London and then Johannesburg. A serial entrepreneur, she founded Global Trader, an emerging market broker in 2000 which was sold seven years later for $50m and in 2007 founded another online broker, the Russian "Yatrade". Fleur is also an angel investor, having funded several social enterprises in Europe and Africa. She is a pro-bono senior advisor to Clearly So, a member of Young Presidents’ Organisation (YPO) and alumni of Oxford University, INSEAD and Harvard.

Melanie Howard

Melanie Howard is a successful entrepreneur and futures specialist who built up the Future Foundation, an online trends forecasting service and consultancy which she sold to Experian four years ago. She is now a visiting professor at Henley Business School and specialises in advising charities and small businesses on building sustainable sources of revenue, as well as conducting a range of futures projects for organisations as diverse as Camelot and the Charities Aid Foundation.

Halima Khan

Halima is a Director of the Public Services Lab at NESTA where she is responsible for overseeing programmes that test public service innovation in practice, with a particular focus on people powered public services.

Prior to joining NESTA in December 2010, Halima was Deputy Director at the Prime Minister’s Strategy Unit, Cabinet Office, providing policy advice to No.10 and Cabinet Office ministers on a range of domestic policy issues.