EXECUTIVE TEAM

LARA LEIGH-WOOD

Owner, Founder and Managing Director

Respected by clients for her strategic thinking, Lara uses her management, team building and relationship building skill to develop a broad range of successful commercial collaborations and to sustain a network of high-value opportunities.

As Managing Director, she is the first point of contact for clients, leading the development of services and tackling the day-to-day business challenges. Lara places huge value on results and depth of experience which shines through in the collective culture and approach of Beacon Gainer.

Over the past four years the reputation of Beacon Gainer has been built around a sophisticated and shared approach to service, and, importantly, understanding that the dynamics of a client, their family and business are unique to each.  We welcome all advisors and clients, whether needing one area of expertise within our services or several and hope you will enjoy being with us.”

Raised in London, attending the French Lycee then St.Mary’s Calne, Lara’s career has spanned London, Paris and Montreal where she attended McGill University and became a member of the prestigious Scarlet Key Society.

An award-winning social entrepreneur, she is a passionate skier and in winter, can often be found skiing in the Swiss and Italian Alps.

ALISON LIDDELL

Client Relations and Executive Assistant

As an experienced Commercial Manager, Alison has previously worked for the Daily Telegraph, Virgin Net and Diageo. With strong skills in new business development, Alison honed her ability to work alongside her clients to support their existing business and develop new commercial opportunities. Nowadays, Alison has a flexible, dynamic and proactive role as an Executive assistant and also plays a key part in organising and running Beacon Gainer events. Alison is an active and valuable member of the team.

Alison grew up in Oxfordshire and now lives in West Berkshire. She has three boys and works part-time. Her recent clients have included a Bespoke Travel company organising high-end holidays, setting up and running an online sales platform for a start-up Food Co-operative, marketing and managing the bookings for a boutique B&B and assisting a senior business leader with an on-line Members Club.

Alison prides herself on her extra-ordinary level of attention to detail, passion and commitment to her clients’ projects, her availability and flexibility to work to tight time deadlines and objectives, and her friendly, helpful and can-do attitude.

When not working (and running around after her boys), Alison enjoys sociable games of tennis and cooking for friends.

Ally Goldberg

Ethical and Social Impact Business Manager

Ally Goldberg specialises in social purpose principles in private wealth. Working closely with our team of advisors and clients, Ally simplifies the process of embedding ethical and sustainable impact into our clients’ wealth-driven goals.

Ally discovered a passion for ESG and CSR while studying for a Business Management degree at the University of Sussex, where she won multiple awards for her work in social responsibility, including a national award in Diversity and Inclusivity Management from Bloomberg.

Recognition in this area, coupled with a first class honours degree paved the way for continued educational and diversity and inclusion (D&I) projects with household names including MTV and BBC3.

Ally believes that measuring social impact on the world and conducting business in an ethical way doesn’t have to come at the expense of the bottom line, but can increase it.

EXECUTIVE ADVISORY TEAM

Nigel Holley

Executive Adviser

Nigel is a Senior Director at NGEN Capital which is a Private Investment Office for UHNW clients.

Prior to joining NGEN Capital he worked as a wealth management and investment consultant advising on and managing assets for ultra-high net worth entrepreneurs and families.

He has a professional career in financial services spanning over 30 years including client and business management roles for some of the world’s leading financial institutions including KPMG, EY, UBS and HSBC. He has also worked for a number of family offices for successful UK business families managing all aspects of their personal wealth.

Nigel’s core experience encompasses managing investment portfolios and wealth structuring. He also has experience of broader projects such as direct business investment, art, classic cars, private aircraft, superyachts, philanthropy and agriculture.

Nigel is recognised as one of the leading investment and family office consultants working within the UK.

He is a Chartered Member of the Chartered Institute for Securities and Investment and has Advanced Financial Planning qualifications with the Chartered Insurance Institute.

Simon Pavitt

Executive Adviser

Simon is a ‘Wingman’, founder of the boutique advisory that manages remarkable people’s ‘Capstones’ (passion projects). He is the Chief Operating Officer at the London Technology Club, an exclusive network of 80+ private investors, VCs, family offices, and institutional partners such as UBS, Barclays, and LGT Vestra. The club’s own fund, The Pledge, of which Simon is an investor, allocates over $30m per year to scale-up/late-stage tech companies. Simon was previously the Chief Marketing Officer of a Formula One team where he applied his challenger mindset to push industry boundaries for over 10 years.

Simon holds a degree in Psychology from Nottingham University and has studied at Harvard Business School. A keen sportsman, he has represented Team GB racing in the Sprint Duathlon World Championships where he finished 26th in his age group. He is soon to publish his first book ‘Capstones: The blueprint for remarkable passion projects that bring joy, meaning, and fulfilment to life’.

RAFIA QURESHI

Executive Adviser, Philanthropy, Impact Investing and ESG

Rafia is a multi-lingual, multi-sector leader in sustainability with a unique mix of private and public-sector experience ranging from venture capital and management consulting to strategic philanthropy and impact investment. Over the past 17 years, Rafia has worked both with large corporations and private Foundations to help them deliver effective philanthropy that contributes to sustainable development. Rafia is currently working with clients ranging from private Foundations to development finance institutions such as the UK’s CDC Group on ensuring investments are catalytic and sustainable.

Before taking on an independent advisory role, Rafia was the CEO of the Womanity Foundation where she led a process of strategic development leading to the creation of the organisation’s first long-term strategy and associated operational and governance structures. Rafia played an instrumental role in repositioning The Womanity Foundation as a strategic actor in the gender equality space.

Prior to Womanity, Rafia was with the Sainsbury Family’s Gatsby Charitable Foundation where she managed the strategic review of Gatsby Africa and developed a new practice focusing on portfolio impact and learning. Rafia spent the majority of her career at J.P. Morgan where she oversaw JPMorgan Chase Foundation’s social investment in emerging markets and supported the Foundation’s broader development in Europe, Middle East and Africa. During her time at J.P. Morgan, she expanded the programmes into the Middle East and Sub Saharan Africa, designing the Foundation’s largest investments in these regions and garnering their support by private and public-sector players.

Before J.P. Morgan, Rafia spent two years working with an international development consulting firm focusing on USAID and DFID funded private sector development programmes in South Asia. Rafia’s career started in the venture capital space working for Dow Jones venture capital research and a start-up venture capital firm in London. Rafia holds a BA in International Relations and Business Administration from Boston University and an MSc in Population and Development from the London School of Economics. She sees herself as a citizen of the world having lived in Turkey, China, Uganda, the US and the UK but is currently residing between Munich and London.

MARC NADEAU

Executive Adviser, Entrepreneurship

Marc Nadeau is an experienced international business owner with over 35 years of Canadian and overseas experience in the field of financial management and investing. He became a Financial Advisor in 2003 after the sale of his former companies.

As a small business owner who founded, financed and managed several companies, Marc utilizes his knowledge and experience in dealing with business owners, giving full consideration to what is necessary to create net worth and preserve its value. He focuses on the essentials of asset allocation, risk management, capital preservation and portfolio diversification with a clear vision of his clients’ short-term and long-term objectives combined with the defined risk tolerance.

Marc has a BSc in Chemistry from McGill University and a Masters business degree in Finance and International Business from the Institut Européen des Affaires, Paris, France.

Marc is married with two children and lives in Toronto. He enjoys international travel, basketball and soccer. He also coaches and assists fellow cancer survivors and their families on a continuing basis. As an internationally recognized wine expert, he takes pleasure in incorporating tasting dinners into his charitable fundraising endeavours.

BOARD OF ADVISORS

Jane Siebels

Chair of Advisory Board

Jane Siebels is a common sense farm girl from Iowa. Her family once ran the largest organic vegetable farm in the United States. Although Jane pursued a career in finance and technology, her heart never left the farm. She has been an investment manager since 1985 and like the Walled Garden, has pioneered many new creations such as a socially responsible hedge fund (and one of the first female hedge fund managers), a co-op ownership structure for an investment company, a global open outsourced, internet-based research company, an authentication/security company with worldwide patents and was seed investor in IMAX Theaters and Magellan GPS. She is and has been a trustee/director of many non-profit and for-profit companies. She is a co-founder of the Walled Garden and is responsible for the retail technology, the large-scale, soil-based vertical vegetable garden and profitability. On her CV the following work experience is listed (most of which was before she was 22): runner on the Chicago Board of Trade, assistant to stock broker, lifeguard/swimming instructor, waitress, caterer, landscape company owner/operator, house cleaning company owner/operator, DJ, spinning instructor, bartender, short-order cook, commercial truck driver and retail clerk. Did we mention she’s a Gemini?