Atul is Managing Director and Chief Investment Officer, at Compass Asset Management in Almaty, Kazakhstan. He is Chief Investment Officer of the public equity portfolio Tau Capital plc. Atul joined Compass in July 2007 and moved to Kazakhstan at the same time. Atul has over 22 years of experience of international financial markets having gained a comprehensive background in investment management that combines fundamental bottom-up stock selection with strategy formulation and managing money for both institutional and retail clients around the world. During his career Atul has worked for Shearson Lehman Global Asset Management, Gartmore, Bankers Trust, F&C Investment Management and Daiwa SB Investments, all based in London. At F&C, where Atul spent over ten years, he managed a top quartile global equity fund that outperformed the MSCI world by 4% p.a. He also built up a specialist global equity business with $3.5bn under management before moving on to head up international equities where he was responsible for over $6bn of total equity assets at F&C. Atul obtained his MBA from Warwick Business School and a BSc (Hons) degree in Mathematics from Brunel University.

Richard founded SHCM in 2006 and is a Director of Tau. Prior to this, he was a main board director of Schroders plc where he was head of investments and a member of the General Management Committee. From 1994 to 2002, Richard held a number of positions at Fidelity. He was president and CEO of Fidelity Management Trust Co the institutional investment arm of Fidelity in the US and also the Trust Bank for the Fidelity Mutual funds. Richard was previously responsible for the investment and development of Fidelity’s institutional business outside the US, and was a member of the operating committee of Fidelity International. Between 1984 and 1994, he was a director and portfolio manager at Newton Investment Management. Prior to this, he was a corporate finance executive specialising in M&A at Samuel Montagu & Co. Richard graduated from Cambridge University with a Masters degree in Modern History.

Darius is a Partner at SHCM and is responsible for sourcing, identifying and executing private equity investments for Tau Capital plc. Darius has over 10 years of combined experience in investment banking and private equity. He began his investment banking career at Citigroup (formerly Salomon Brothers) in 1997 where he focused on telecommunications, media and technology sectors and worked in New York, Hong Kong and London offices, advising clients on a variety of M&A, corporate finance and capital raising transactions in the US, Europe and Asia. Following his MBA studies in 2003, Darius joined Merrill Lynch in London and later moved to Credit Suisse where he advised clients on a number of M&A, private equity, advisory and capital raising transactions across Europe and particularly across the EMEA emerging markets. His notable emerging markets financing transactions included $1.6 billion IPO of Sistema (Russian telecommunications conglomerate), $891 million privatisation and IPO of Telecom Egypt, $893 million IPO of LSR Group (Russian real estate development and building materials business), $3 billion IPO of Eurasian Natural Resources Corporation. He also advised financial sponsors, corporations and governments on various acquisitions, divestments and M&A situations involving, among others, Polkomtel (Polish mobile operator), Netia (Polish alternative telecom operator), Bite (Lithuanian mobile operator), Telecom Egypt, Agora (Polish media group), MTS (Russian mobile operator). Darius holds a BSBA with Summa Cum Laude Honours (major in Finance) from the University of Denver and obtained his MBA degree (major in Finance) from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania in 2003. Darius is fluent in English, Russian and Lithuanian.

Michael joined VISOR Capital, Kazakhstan in 2005 as Chief Executive Officer, becoming President of VISOR Holding LLP in October 2008, having had some 14 years experience working in emerging markets. Prior to joining VISOR Capital, Michael was the founder and Chief Executive Officer of Continuum Information Technologies Pvt Ltd (now Kring Technologies a/s), an IT company with offices in Copenhagen, Kiev and Delhi. Prior to this, he lived for three years in Azerbaijan, where he was the Director of Equity Trading for The Minaret Group, an emerging markets investment bank, and Managing Director of Kaliber Securities. Michael began his professional career with the Swiss Banking Corporation in London before working with Brunswick Brokerage in Moscow. Michael graduated from South Bank University with a B.A. (Hons) in Finance in 1993.