Biographies of Proposed Board Directors

Kathleen McLeay has a first-class honours law degree and qualified as a solicitor in 1999 with Dundas & Wilson (now CMS). She worked in their corporate finance team post qualification. During this time she spent a period of secondment with merchant bank Noble Grossart and was lured out of law moving to join E&Y’s PLC team in 2001. She then moved with a colleague to a smaller boutique corporate finance house before joining Noble Group in late 2003 based in Edinburgh and London. Kathleen initially worked in the Financial Institutions Group and was heavily involved in the launch and float of the Company in 2005. She later moved to the Retail and Consumer Group and ultimately to Noble Corporate Management (“NCM”) to take over their Regulated Operator business. Kathleen built this business over a number of years and in 2009 participated in a buyout with her now Chairman to take NCM out of the Group into their ownership with Katheen as CEO. This business now has 80 employees and offices in Edinburgh, London, Jersey and Guernsey and offers cradle to grave fund administration and depositary services to closed ended unregulated funds investing in all sectors. NCM also provide regulatory, AIFM and depositary services. Kathleen is the Compliance Officer for the 3 UK regulated entities, a director of their Jersey regulated entity and a NED of Social Investment Scotland which is a social enterprise and charity offering loan funding and business support for social enterprises, charities and community groups.

Hector Kilpatrick  started his career at Norwich Union Investment Management in 1994. In 1997 he moved back north of the border and joined the continental european equities team at Standard Life Investments (SLI) having passed the IIMR professional exams. The team ran circa £5bn in funds, and he managed SLI's continental european equity pooled pension fund as well as a number of segregated accounts.  In late 2005, he joined SVM Asset Management and managed the SVM UK Alpha fund until April 2010. Over this time, the fund produced a top decile performance and Hector was regularly Citywire ‘A’ rated and often a member of the Citywire 50% club, demonstrating consistently strong performance. During this time, he was allocated part of the Skandia UK Best Ideas fund to run alongside a number of high profile industry names.  In 2010 Hector was appointed Chief Investment Officer at Cornelian Asset Managers Ltd. The firm was an independent fund management company providing global, multi-asset solutions to IFAs, private clients charities and small pension funds. The firm was sold successfully to Brooks MacDonald Group plc in early 2020. Over this period, the firm exhibited sustained, consistent and profitable growth, driven primarily by the firm’s suite of six open-ended, unconstrained, global multi-asset risk managed funds.  During his tenure at Cornelian Asset Managers Ltd, he was a member of the executive committee and sat on the group board. He also chaired the firm’s Investment Risk Committee and was a member of the Treasury Committee. Hector continues to lead the management of the SVS Cornelian Risk Manged Fund range at Brooks MacDonald and sits on the firm’s Asset Allocation Committee. He has considerable experience of engaging with the boards of closed-ended investment companies to ensure the best outcomes for shareholders. Hector holds an MBA in Strategic Management (Imperial College Business School), an MSc in Aquatic Resource Management (Kings College, London) and a BSC (Hons) in Marine and Environmental Biology (St. Andrews).  Outside of work, Hector is the Trustee Treasurer of the East Lothian Foodbank, the 5^th busiest foodbank in Scotland. The foodbank, part of the Trussell network, provides emergency 3-day food parcels to over 5,000 households in crisis each year.

Charlie McMicking started work in the financial services industry in the late 1980 with Lehman Brothers, working in small company corporate finance.  In the early 1990's, he joined Daiwa Investment Advisers and specialised in Infrastructure and Environmental Investment before moving to Electra Partners. He worked there for 7 years before returning to Scotland to head up the equity investment side of Noble Group. One of the significant clients was Enterprise VCT which invested in both Aim and Unquoted small companies where he became familiar with the VCT qualification rules.  In 2008, Charlie left Noble Group to found Dovetail Games, the developer and publisher of the award-winning Train Simulator Franchise.   Charlie was Chairman of the company for over 12 years and in 2023, Pull Up Entertainment bought the company generating returns of over 35x for the original investors and by which time the company was turning over nearly £20m  and employing over 150 staff. Charlie is an active investor in both  private and public companies and is familiar with the roles and responsibilities involved.

Dr Paul Jourdan is CEO of Amati Global Investors.  He started his career as a professional violinist, having studied music at Clare College Cambridge, and then violin at the RNCM in Manchester. After spending four years as a member of the first violin section of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra (1990-94) he began studying for an MPhil in Birmingham, then a PhD in Cambridge, completing a thesis on “Mendelssohn’s Visits to London, 1829-37” in 1998.  He then moved to Edinburgh to train as a fund manager with Stewart Ivory, gaining early experience in a wide range of asset classes.  In 2000 the company was taken over by First State Investments, where Paul became manager of a UK smaller companies fund which he has managed ever since despite a few name changes.  It is now called the WS Amati UK Listed Smaller Companies Fund.  In 2005 he set up and floated First State AIM VCT, which went through a number of mergers and name changes and which became part of Amati AIM VCT Plc, which Paul continued to manage until April 2025.  In 2007 Paul left First State to join Noble Group, continuing to manage both of the funds he had done whilst at First State. In January 2010, together with colleague Douglas Lawson, he co-founded Amati Global Investors following the management buyout of Noble Fund Managers from Noble Group.  Since then Amati has expanded its fund range by taking on two additional investments teams, enabling the launch of the WS Amati Strategic Metals Fund in 2021 and the WS Amati Global Innovation Fund in 2022. Paul has served on the boards of two AIM quoted companies and been a board observer for two others. He was a Governor of the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland for six years, and has been a director of a number of charitable organisations, including Sistema Scotland, Hebrides Ensemble, and Dunedin Consort. He was a founder director of Clean Trade, where he remains a Trustee.