Anuar Utemuratov has over 20 years experience both as an investor and in operations across sectors including finance, property, publishing, and food. From 2005 to 2007 he worked with the Economist Intelligence Unit and the Institute of Economic Strategies in Central Asia after which he took an advisory role to the CEO of the newly launched Verny Capital where he was involved in the acquisition, development and investment management of three Ritz Carlton hotels. From 2008 to 2010 he joined JP Morgan's corporate finance team covering the Middle East and Asia. In 2010 he took on the role of Chief Risk Officer of Forte Bank in Kazakhstan and oversaw a significant expansion in the bank's assets and profitability. From 2013 he became a board member of the bank, a position which is ongoing. In 2015 he won the master franchise for Burger King in Central Asia and has successfully built the business out to 50 stores and remains on the board of thecompany.
Sanju Vaswani has over 30 years experience in investment and finance and has been based in London since 1996. He was with Citigroup, ING Barings and HSBC in capital markets and corporate finance until 2007 when he became a founding partner of Verny Capital. In 2013 he joined the International Finance Corporation as the Senior Investment Officer for Europe and Central Asia in the Telecom, Media and Technology sectors and worked in Washington DC, Moscow and London. In 2017 he established TMTS Partners investing in telecom infrastructure in Northern Europe, the UK and Ireland.
Freddy Cantor leads the real estate investment strategy at Mars Advisors. Freddy has detailed experience in investment and development and has been involved in the acquisition, development and financing of over £1 billion of gross development value with a focus on the office, residential, student and hotel sectors in Central London. Prior to joining Mars Advisors Freddy worked at LBS Properties, a specialist investment and development manager, and Kroll (formerly Duff & Phelps) in the real estate corporate finance and valuation team.