About VIP

Who are we?

VIP’s founders and founding shareholders are uniquely positioned to source, structure and consummate opportunities as evidenced by their successful track record as founders of a number of institutional investment funds and venture-backed companies

Who We Are

The company Background

Executive & Investment Management

Julie Marie meyer

dr. Julie Meyer MBE

Chief Executive Officer, Chairman 

Our team

Reza Nader - Sepahi

Venture Partner

Reza is the Venture Partner at VIVA Investment Partners. With more than 20 years of experience in Insurance, Banking, Asset Management and Family Office and Funds, he is a perfect addition to the VIP Team as his experience in strategic development, legal and technology brings the know-how to VIP companies. He started his career as the Corporate Counsel for Mondus, Pan-European SME Marketplace and has since then been a General Counsel & Chief Compliance Officer at Gottex Fund Management, Director – Caspian Markets at HSBC, and has spent more than ten years of career as a Group General Counsel & Compliance Director at Nexus Insurance Brokers.

Michael Moszynski

Partner

Michael Moszynski graduated from LSE and worked for the Saatchi Brothers for over 20 years. Having run large global clients from London he then set up M&C Saatchi’s offices in Hong Kong, New York, London, Africa and The Middle East.

In 2008 Michael launched LONDON Advertising as a new type of global agency, working from one office in London and using technology to disrupt the existing large, slow and bureaucratic networks.

Michael has worked with entrepreneurs on every continent to create successful global brands that were able to exit for billions of dollars, including lastminute.com, Ketel One Vodka and Glo Mobile.

Scott Fulton

Co-Chief Investment Officer and Investment Director

Scott Fulton is an economics graduate and a capital markets specialist. From 1988 until 2000, he worked within London’s equity capital market as an Extel rated analyst in the Building and Construction sector for, amongst others, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Credit Suisse and ABN Amro. From 2000, Scott moved into financial public relations and investor relations (“FPR” and “IR”). He was the director responsible for IR and M&A at Financial Dynamics (now FTI), Citigate Dewe Rogerson (CDR), Just Retirement plc (now Just Group) and Asda Burson Marsteller (UAE).

On returning from the Gulf in 2015, Scott re-joined investment analysis at Whitman Howard (recently sold to Panmure Gordon) before moving into Proxy Solicitation, specialising in M&A, at Equiniti plc. Through his professional career, Scott has focused on and developed skills in investor relations.

Malcolm Ross

Partner

Malcolm H. Ross is an independent consultant with 45 years’ experience in critiquing and enhancing strategies to monetise new products, services and enterprises, particularly those enabled by new mobile communications, high-speed data and media.

Based in Malta, he advises, challenges and coaches C-Level executives and investors across Europe and South-East Asia. Until July 1999 he was Vice-President in, Arthur D. Little’s world-wide Electronics, IT and Telecoms Practice.

Tim Shields,CTO @ VIVA PARTNERS

Tim Shields

Chief Technology & Product Officer

Tim is currently the Chief Technology and Product Officer of VIVA Investment Partners, as well as being on advisory boards for a number of UK start-ups covering Electric Vehicles, FinTech, Payments and Legal.

Coming from a technical development background and having 25 years of experience with startups and scale-ups, Tim has a proven track record of building technology companies whilst working in the fast-paced and often resource-limited start-up culture. He has founded or joined early-stage start-up/scale-ups across a number of varied domains: Military, Telecoms, Work-from-home enabling tech, ERP/ Vehicle Logistics and most recently FinTech.

Tim was heavily involved in a number of Open Banking steering groups, covering the implementation and roll-out with FCA and OBIE. This experience and his work across sectors have provided him with strong credentials in Governance/process creation and standards, including FCA AISP accreditation. Additionally, Tim has extensive experience working in-depth with both AWS and Azure together with in-depth experience of cloud-native architectures for highly scalable, high availability enterprise systems solutions – design, management and implementation.

Kate Makuen, Marketing Director VIVA Investment Partners

Strategic Partnerships Director

Marketing Director

Kate is an experienced B2B marketing executive based in London. After two decades in marketing for financial services firms including American Express, J.P. Morgan Chase, HSBC, RBS and Deutsche Bank, her sector knowledge extends across asset and wealth management, investment banking, and FinTech. She has covered a number of verticals including alternative investments, energy, commodities, commercial property, infrastructure, automotive, and luxury goods.

Her areas of expertise include marketing strategy, brand activation, partnerships, social media/public relations engagement, digital campaigns, lead generation, and sales enablement. Her work with startups has included FinTechs, ESG SaaS, and DeepTech companies.

A native of New York City, Kate moved to the UK in 2008 and is a dual US/UK national. She attained a post-graduate diploma in strategy and innovation at Oxford’s Saïd Business School and studied political economy at Yale and Cornell. A qualified independent Non-Executive Director in fund management, she serves on the advisory board of RegTech Women, as a member of the CISI FinTech Forum and as a trustee of the Wentworth Africa Foundation. She is a member of several investor networks including the Green Angel Syndicate.

dr. julie Meyer, mbe

Chief Executive

Julie Meyer is the Chief Executive of VIVA Investment Partners (VIP), a firm she co-founded in July 2018 when she sold the Ariadne Capital Group to a Swiss Private Equity firm.

She leads the investment platform and sits on the Board of Directors of VIP, Drive Software Solutions and Entrepreneur Country Limited. She is heading up the firm’s expansion to Greece.

She has received an MBE during the Queen’s Honours list in the UK as well as an honorary doctorate from Warwick University in the UK for Ecosystem Economics®.

She was named as one of INSEAD’s Top 50 Alumni as well as one of the World Economic Forum’s Global Leader’s for Tomorrow.

John R. Porter

Chairman Emeritus

John Porter was a significant individual and investor in the world that he lived in, and was recognised globally for his philanthropy, his entrepreneurial ventures and his business acumen.

He tragically passed away on the 10th of November 2021, and the VIVA Investment Partners team will always remember how good he was to them in the years – 2019 – 2021. #RememberJohnPorter

 

 

 

Richard Parris

Partner

Richard Parris is Adviser and Founder Shareholder at VIVA Investment Partners.

Richard is passionate about building great businesses, developing people and creating value. He is a proven entrepreneur with 20 years’ experience as a public company chairman. Richard founded and was Chairman and CEO of the Intercede Group, an UK/US cybersecurity software company, listed on the London Stock Exchange.

Currently, Richard is the Executive Chairman of Sabien Technology Group plc, public-listed company focused on green technology, and is the Chairman of Drive Software Systems, an automotive fleet management and mobility service provider. He is also the CEO of Salt Cybersecurity Ltd, the European subsidiary of an Australian cybersecurity business.

Richard is a graduate of the University of Manchester, holds an MBA from the University of Warwick and is a Registered Engineer.

Our Team

Daniel Oakland, UK General Counsel

Daniel Oakland

UK General Counsel

Daniel is the company’s UK General Counsel.

Prior to setting up his own law firm in 2010, he was Head of Employment Law at well-known City and West End firms. In addition, he is a Consultant to a number of law firms and businesses. He is an economics graduate and also a former Barrister. Daniel’s primary specialism is employment law, although his wide-ranging knowledge and experience of commercial law has made him a trusted asset to many loyal business clients.

He is a firm believer in a pragmatic, solutions-based approach to advice. Daniel has appeared on radio and TV advising and commenting on topical legal issues. He also speaks fluent French.

Christos Doulke

Chris Doulke

Operations Director & Strategic Ventures Director, Kea Greece

Chris Doulke is developing the Kea platform for VIVA Investment Partners as Strategic Ventures and Operations Director.

He manages the property that VIVA owns in Kea, Greece and has developed two successful events for the firm – the FTE Kea (October 2020) and Keanaissance (June 2021).

He is a born entrepreneur with 20 years of experience building businesses, making clients and customers happy, and managing complex situations.

Andrej Kajganić

Marketing Manager

Andrej is the company’s Marketing Manager.

An experienced copywriter and a digital marketing enthusiast, Andrej worked for leading advertising agencies in Croatia where he built his experience working on advertising campaigns for the biggest telecoms, IT companies, banks and many others. 

His digital expertise started with the growing influence of social media when he connected that to the copywriting skills he developed. 

Andrej is very skilled in creating creative concepts, digital and social media campaigns.

Michelle Bearth

Operations Manager, VIP Switzerland

Michelle is the Operations Manager at VIVA Investment Partners AG.

She’s based in Zurich, Switzerland and is the contact person for all matters concerning the company in Switzerland.

Sophia Douni

Operations Manager, VIP Greece

Sophia Douni (Ntouni) is a professional from Athens Greece with a background in banking and tourism. She has worked in banking positions and in the tourism industry, and is fluent in English and German.  Her diverse background gives her the ability to organize and manage all the different aspects of our Greek subsidiary

Vishal Mandavia

Financial Controller, VIP UK