Board of Directors

Howard has over 30 years experience in the financial investment sector in both non-executive and executive roles. He became Chair of Menhaden Resource Efficiency PLC (16 May 2023) after being Audit Committee Chair since 2015. In April 2023 he was appointed non-executive Director and Audit Commitee Chair of Ashoka White Oak Emerging Markets Trust PLC. Previous non-executive roles include Chair of the Pension Boards (statutory advisory and scrutiny roles) of the Avon, Berkshire and Wiltshire Pension Funds; non-executive Director and Audit Committee Chair of a UK Port Authority; non-executive Director, Investment Committee member, and Audit Committee Chair of a UK health charity; and non-executive advisor to the Board of Response Global Media.  In 2014 Howard founded HowESG limited, a specialist asset stewardship, corporate governance and ESG consultancy business; after being head of the award winning Environment Agency Pension Fund (and member of its Investment Committee) between 2003-2013. Under his leadership the fund won over 30 awards in the UK, Europe and globally for its financialland environmentally responsible investment strategy, best practice fund governance, public reporting and e-communications.  

Barbara Donoghue (also known as Barbara Donoghue Vavalidis) joined the Board as a non-executive Director on 1 February 2022. She was a non-executive director of Byredo AB, a Stockholm based luxury fragrance company, until June 2022, having been its chair for the six years to 2020. Until 2020 she was also a partner in London based Manzanita Capital, a private equity partnership specialising in the beauty and personal care industry. Other past appointments include chair of Susanne Kaufmann Ltd, an Austrian based beauty company, director and audit committee chair of Eniro AB, a Stockholm listed media company, member of the Competition Commission and Competition and Markets Authority and member of the board of the Independent Television Commission. She had a previous career in finance in Toronto, New York and London advising companies on raising debt and equity financing and on executing mergers and acquisitions, during which she worked at Bank of Nova Scotia, Bankers Trust and NatWest Markets.

Soraya Chabarek joined the Board as a non-executive Director on 1 March 2023.

She is CEO at CQS (UK) LLP, a London-based, credit-focused multi-strategy asset management firm. She joined CQS in 2013, is a Senior Partner and serves as a director on the CQS board.

During her career, Soraya has had exposure to a broad range of fund strategies including global macro, equities, emerging markets, credit and convertibles.

She was previously at Moore Europe Capital Management, from 2008 to 2013, where she was head of marketing for emerging macro strategies. From 2004 to 2008 she was a principal at GLG Partners and from 2000 to 2004 she was with HSBC Private Bank.

Ben has over 24 years experience in the financial investment and banking sectors, including in both executive and non-executive roles.  Ben is a non-executive Director of Ambac Assurance UK Limited.

Previous investment and asset management roles include:  Chief Executive of John Laing Group PLC (at the time, a FTSE 250 company focused on investing in Infrastructure & Energy Transition), Managing Partner and Head of Infrastructure of InfraRed Capital Partners (which was the investment adviser to two UK-listed investment funds:  HICL and TRIG), and Managing Partner of 3i Infrastructure (which was the investment adviser to 3i Infrastructure PLC, and where Ben also served as a non-executive Director).

Prior to those roles, Ben's earlier career was in investment banking at Goldman Sachs, Greenhill and Morgan Stanley.