Investment Philosophy Expert Council

Robert F. Mancuso is a pioneer in the alternative assets category and a decades long investor. He was the first President and Chief Executive Officer of Merrill Lynch Capital Partners, Inc., the entity responsible for establishing and growing Merrill’s private equity business, which he helped found. Under his leadership Merrill was the first Wall Street firm to raise a captive private equity fund from institutional investors. He also helped design Merrill’s  very successful strategy of being the White Knight to companies under threatened takeover from raiders who were financed by Drexel Burnham and Mike Milken. While at Merrill he led the team that sourced and closed the first billion dollar leveraged buyout ever done by anyone which was done with KKR as Merrill’s partner.  He subsequently founded and served as Chief Executive Officer of two merchant banking firms, Mancuso & Company and The Dellacorte Group. Prior to joining Merrill Lynch, Mr. Mancuso was associated with Lazard Freres & Co. He also practiced law with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission.  Over his career he has led teams that raised over $7 billion in financing, tapping numerous providers of senior, mezzanine, and equity capital, from both public and private sources. He has also served on the boards of directors of twelve companies ranging in size from $75 million to $4 billion in annual sales.

Mr. Mancuso currently is the CEO of Capri Capital, LLC, his family office , which is a Palm Beach-based private equity-focused investment firm.  Mr. Mancuso is a thought leader in the family office investing space.  He has written five  articles that address the investing needs of Single Family Offices and the challenges of direct investing including (1) The Search for Alpha Goes Private:  Why Single-Family Offices Are Competing to Do Direct Deals and the Risks They Produce; (2)  Searching for Alpha in the Private Market: Why Many SFOs Shouldn’t Bother; (3) Searching For Yield in The Private Market: Why Single-Family Offices Should Stop Thinking Passively and Start Acting Dynamically to Enhance Fixed Income Returns ; and (4) The Illusion of Stability which describes how the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank, Silvergate Bank, and First Republic contributed to the forced take over of Credit Suisse by UBS. 

His most recent article is entitled  Wealth Taxes: A Confusing Signal to Entrepreneurs ? . In it he identifies how the imposition of Wealth Taxes threaten entrepreneurship and innovation. It also documents how Wealth Taxes have been pursued in Western Europe and continue to be a controversial topic of discussion.

In June 2024, Mr. Mancuso spoke  at the 10th anniversary of the founding of the Global Family Office Community conference in London. He described  how confiscatory tax policies threaten the ability of family held  businesses to pass on their legacies to succeeding generations.

Mr. Mancuso has recently established the White Knight Capital: The Capri Hybrid Fund to assist family held businesses in both the United States and Europe in their ability to preserve and pass on their families’ legacies.

Simon Hopkins is a successful entrepreneur and investment professional.

He has been a senior figure in the international investment management industry for more than two decades, and a champion of investors’ rights.

He is passionate about emerging markets, having launched numerous closed end fund structures, and more recently a number of regulated collectives in Ireland. Mr Hopkins is a committed climate change warrior and in 2020, his family firm, Milltrust International entered into a landmark initiative with WWF to invest into the low carbon economy in Asia, and support the conservation programs and species extinction challenges of the organisation across the region.

In 2011, Mr. Hopkins founded impact-focused Milltrust International in Singapore dedicated to the mantra of “Sustainable Prosperity”, operating an award-winning, FCA authorised, investment platform focusing on three key secular themes, the development of Emerging Markets, Agricultural Investments, and Science & Technological Innovation.

Milltrust also manages the British Innovation Fund, partnering with the leading Universities and Centres of Innovation in the UK and around the world. In Singapore, he has launched a new company called Future Health to support the nascent health tech economy. Recent investments include Roslin Technologies and Green Feed Company, Protenga Pte Ltd, along with Enterprise Singapore’s SEEDS Fund.

Mr. Hopkins co-founded the international, sustainability and impact-focused, Multi-Family Office, East West Private Wealth, operating from its headquarters in Singapore, but extending its reach to Monaco, Switzerland and the UAE. He serves as chairman of the supervisory board, and works closely with complex family solutions for clients around the world.

He graduated with honours from the University of Bristol's Faculty of Law in 1986 and speaks fluent French. In 2017, Mr Hopkins completed the Financial Times Non-Executive Director Diploma in Singaporeto qualify him to sit on the boards of Asian listed companies. He travels extensively but resides permanently with his wife, Korean born British citizen, Joann Jhin, in Singapore, and is deeply committed to promoting the long-term success of the UK/Singapore ties through the harnessing of his international network.

Yuval Reisman is a seasoned professional with extensive experience in the fields of crypto, finance, technology, and entrepreneurship.

Yuval is the Founder and CEO of Atitlan Asset Management, an award-winning crypto quantitative multi-strategy fund based out of London. He also founded YRD Capital, the OG of a Fund of Funds specializing in crypto systematic funds, launched in March 2018. He has been fully committed to the crypto space since 2017.

He also founded the Asia Israel Blockchain Association. Yuval has been instrumental in promoting blockchain technology and fostering connections in the industry.

In his previous roles, Yuval served as the Managing Director at Hone Capital, a US-China Venture Capital firm, and as the General Manager and Head of APAC China at ironSource, a leading mobile marketing technology platform. At ironSource, he successfully established the APAC office and significantly expanded the company's business in the region.

Yuval's career also includes his role as Assistant General Partner at Infinity Equity, a PE firm focusing on Israeli-Chinese Ventures.

Yuval holds an MBA from INSEAD and a Bachelor of Arts in Geneval and East Asian Studies from Tel Aviv University.

He lives in London with his wife and daughter.