AA Advisors

Alexandra Daly

Founder & CEO

Alexandra Daly founded AA Advisors in 2007 and has been raising capital in the alternatives industry for the last 19 years, helping raise billions of dollars for Hedge Funds, Private Equity, Real Estate and Venture Capital firms to date.

In addition to her work with AA Advisors, Alexandra leads an initiative spun out of the Alison Rose Review of Female Entrepreneurship, commissioned by the UK Government, which aims to promote entrepreneurialism across the UK and reduce the entrepreneurial gender gap.  Alexandra is the Chair of the Council for Investing in Female Entrepreneurs, a steering committee comprised of leading financial institutions, which is looking at implementing the recommendations of the Rose Review that urge LPs and investment funds to help their clients invest in female-run businesses. As part of her role she is helping to address the funding challenges for female-run businesses and entrepreneurs seeking to access capital from the alternatives community. Alexandra was awarded the Investment Consultant of the Year award at the 2020 Women in Finance Awards for her work in supporting female entrepreneurship.

Prior to founding AA Advisors, Alexandra worked for the Man Group for three years, where she cross-sold the firm’s multi-manager platforms, fund of funds businesses and investment services capabilities to European and UAE institutions, sovereign wealth funds, and family offices. Prior to this, Alexandra worked at J.P. Morgan in their London office in the derivatives products group. She started her career in finance at Morgan Stanley, as a member of the Fixed Income and Money Markets division. Alexandra has a BA Honours in Law from City University of London.  

Alvaro Pernas

Advisor

Alvaro Pernas began his career at Banco Santander de Negocios in Madrid in 1987 where he ran the Fixed Income Sales desk. He moved to London in 1991 to join the Morgan Stanley Fixed Income Division where he set up and ran the Iberia & Greece Fixed Income sales team (Credit and rates) until 2006 when he left to set up Bretema Capital Advisors.

Alvaro joined Marine Capital, a shipping specialist FCA registered fund manager as a partner and Director in 2007 until his departure in 2021. He also held a position as Director in Eclipse Shipping until May 2023. He currently focuses on Transition Energy, Shipping and Real Estate advisory work at Bretema Capital. He holds a Law Degree and an Economics Degree from the Universidad Pontificia Comillas-ICADE.

Paul Sullivan

Consultant, UK Institutions

Paul Sullivan is an experienced fundraiser in the European Private Credit Markets. He was most recently a Director in Global Capital Markets at Funding Circle plc where he managed the private and public Funds businesses, built relationships with UK pension funds and insurance companies and raised capital for SME lending. Prior to this, he was a Partner and Head of Business Development at Pemberton Asset Management where he was instrumental in the raising of Pemberton Fund I of €1.2B (European Mid-Market Direct Lending). Over his 32 years in London, Paul has developed strong and longstanding investment relationships with most of the leading UK insurance companies and pension funds. Paul has raised money for commingled private credit funds and several large separately managed accounts for European insurers and UK Pension Funds. He has been involved in fund structuring, currency hedging, balance sheet management, loan loss provisioning, dividend/distribution policy and all aspects of financial reporting to investors. Paul is also a Senior Advisor to Clearbrook Capital Partners LLP where he originates and advises on private equity transactions in European Financial Services. He started his career in finance at Chemical Bank in New York, as an Associate in Leveraged Finance with Jimmy Lee. Paul has a BA in Economics from the University of Michigan where he majored in International Finance and Trade Theory and an MBA from Northeastern University in Corporate Finance where he attended as a Graduate Teaching Assistant.

Rodrigo Cortes

Real Estate Consultant

Rodrigo Cortes has over 18 years of experience in the financial and real estate sectors. He started his career at Goldman Sachs in London, where he spent 13 years in both the M&A team (with a focus on Financial Institutions) and the Equity Capital Markets team. Throughout his tenure at Goldman Sachs, Rodrigo executed a score of strategic transactions, including mergers, IPOs, capital increases, ABOs and Convertible/Exchangeable Bonds, across a wide range of sectors. Following his relocation to Madrid, Rodrigo joined Azora Capital (c.€10bn real asset investment manager) as Head of Fundraising and Client Development, leading the in-house raising of capital for multiple investment vehicles across the hospitality, Living (BTR and Senior), industrial and renewable energy sectors. Most recently, Rodrigo was a Managing Director at Tishman Speyer, responsible for the firm’s capital partner relationships across the UK, Ireland, the Netherlands, Southern Europe and Israel, in addition to working alongside the European acquisitions team, continuing to broaden Tishman Speyer’s investments in Spain. Rodrigo holds a BSc in Business Admin and Finance from CUNEF University, in Madrid.

Raj Dhown

Consultant

Raj Dhown has 30+ years of experience dealing with and advising financial institutions in both Europe and Asia in respect of a wide mandate that covers risk & capital management, various forms of financing and investments into alternative products. Raj recently left NatWest Markets Singapore where he ran Sales across APAC. During his tenure at NatWest, Raj focused on delivering UK alternative debt assets (CRE, infrastructure, consumer loans, etc) to institutional investors (including life insurance cos who have adopted new Solvency 2-type Risk Based Capital regimes) across Asia under “Originate-to-Distribute” co-investment partnership platforms. Prior to joining NatWest, Raj co-founded iCapital Advisory Limited, with offices in HK and Singapore, a private debt advisory firm that advised medium sized borrowers in Asia seeking private financing from the growing number of non-bank lenders in Asia. In addition, it was placement agent for alternative asset managers in Europe (eg Cheyne Capital) looking to raise AUM from Family Offices, Private Banks and institutional investors in Asia. Prior to this, he was a senior Managing Director at Citigroup where he was responsible for the Financial Institutions Solutions business in APAC (ex-Japan). His role at Citi involved extensive engagement with CFOs, CIOs and regulators of financial institutions regionally to identify key problems & issues and propose cross-asset class solutions including the delivery of derivative solutions and alternative investments. Raj was also responsible for the Citi International Funds Distribution business in APAC. Prior to his eight years at Citi, Raj held various senior client-facing roles at Lehman Bros, Deutsche Bank and JP Morgan in Europe. Raj is a qualified UK Chartered Accountant (having previously worked at Price Waterhouse Coopers) and holds a BA Hons in Economics from Manchester University.

Robert Ekblom

Consultant

Mr Ekblom has thirty years of experience in Sales and Marketing of Fixed Income Credit Products, Structured Solutions and Alternative Investments to Institutional Investors, Family Offices and Private Wealth Managers. He has been Head of the Nordic Region at Merrill Lynch, Deutsche Bank, Lehman Brothers and RBS Global Markets. He has directly represented asset managers and worked with allocators in Alternative Investments since 2005, and has successfully seeded several new talented mangers, assisted established mangers in growing AUM, and has brought several new concepts and solutions to market. Mr Ekblom holds a BSc in Economics from the University of Dayton, an MBA in Finance from Stern School of Business at New York University, and Executive Education Diplomas from Harvard Business School. 

Joanna Koczuk

Project Manager

Joanna Koczuk is an Investor Relations and Fundraising professional with 8 years experience. She was most recently Head of Investor Relations at Ventuure, a market leading agency for high growth Series A & B companies, where she specialised in preparing investor reports, presentations, communications, and assisted in fundraising initiatives across the platform for venture fund clients, amongst other roles. Joanna was previously Head of Investor Relations and Fundraising at Picus Capital, an early stage technology investment firm, where she focused on the fundraise for Picus Venture Fund II. Prior to that, Joanna worked as a Distribution Business Manager and in Private Asset Sales for Schroders Capital in London where she was part of the private markets team and helped to quadruple the size of the platform in three years. She worked on implementing cross selling and new client acquisition strategies and contributed to strategic distribution acquisitions. Joanna holds a Bachelor’s degree from Harvard University and a MBA degree from Imperial College Business School. 

Sara Simmons

Sales Consultant

Sara has worked in structured credit markets for over 25 years. Covering a range of products, from securitisations, receivables-backed transactions, LBOs, syndicated loans, high yield bonds, convertibles, asset swaps to trade finance. She has worked in London, New York and Hong Kong for Bankers Trust, JP Morgan, Mizuho.

Connor Miles

Senior Associate

Connor leads AA Advisors’ Investor Relations team and is in charge of circulating manager materials to investors, assisting with both investment and operational due diligence, as well as keeping dedicated records of investor engagements throughout the life of a raise.

He liaises with all members of the sales team, advising on LP distribution strategy, particularly at the initiation of a fundraise cycle. He is also responsible for expanding the firm’s network with international investors.

HanaH Ovenstone

Investor Relations

Hanah is responsible for investor relations and runs project administration alongside interfacing with AA Advisors general partner clients.

Madilean Coen

Consultant

Madilean Coen began her 20 year career at Prudential Securities working in the futures and commodities division. As a portfolio and CTA analyst, she used evaluation tools to select, analyse and optimise multi-manager funds for high-net-worth clients, institutions and to create Managed Futures funds as well as funds of hedge funds. As a part of the Managed Futures division, she was responsible for helping grow the Managed Futures and alternative fund of funds business, eventually directing the global sales team from New York. In 2000, she joined Scudder Investments in London as Regional Sales Director for Europe and the Middle East to expand the distribution of their long-only equity and fixed income funds. Following the merger between Scudder Investments and Deutsche Bank, she became the Head of European Retail Distribution for Deutsche Asset Management.  Since leaving Deustche Asset Management, she has held senior asset management positions including being the co-founder of Blacksquare Capital, a funds of hedge funds asset management firm which she later sold.  Madilean has also held senior institutional positions as Head of Distribution, Asset Management for Jefferies International specialising in the  distribution of UCITS funds to private banks, family offices and pension funds. Madilean currently focuses on private markets and direct investments.