Who We Are

George Robb, Chairman

A solicitor by training, George joined Brander and Cruickshank Advocates in Aberdeen to specialise in investment management.  In 1983 he participated in the buy-out of that firm's investment management department, establishing Aberdeen Fund Managers which became Aberdeen Asset Management plc ("Aberdeen").  George became CEO of Aberdeen and later Chairman when it achieved a full listing on the London Stock Exchange in 1991.  During his tenure from 1983 to 1993 the funds under management increased from £50 million to £2.5 billion. 

In 1994 George established Asset Management Investment Company plc ("AMIC"), a specialist investment company which successfully raised institutional capital to invest in global asset management businesses, and which he ran as Managing Director until the acquisition of the company in 2011.  As a result of his career with Aberdeen and AMIC, he has unrivalled experience of the opportunities and challenges of building asset management companies.  

Antony John, Director

Antony spent his formative executive years at Hill Samuel Asset Management from 1988 to 1998 and then in 1999 joined Lombard Odier where he was Executive Vice President of the Northern European retail and institutional business excluding private banking, with an asset pool in excess of €17 billion.  In 2003 he became CEO and one of the four principal shareholders in a newly formed firm, Investment Manager Selection ("IMS") that grew to become the largest UK independent institutional manager selection firm, with over £5 billion of assets.  In 2008 IMS was acquired by BNP Paribas Investment Partners and merged into its FundQuest multi-manager business.  Antony was appointed the UK CEO and presided over the integration of the Fortis multi-manager business and the growth of assets under management to over €40 billion. 

Antony's particular skills and knowledge base lie in managing and building a multi-asset, multi-manager fund management business, and his resulting knowledge of firms and individuals across a wide spectrum of asset management disciplines (he is also an expert in creating asset pooling platforms).  Antony is much in demand as a speaker at asset management conferences (Monaco, Boston, Hong Kong and London).​

Jan has spent a working life in financial services in the UK and the US.  After four years at Warburg Investment Management (the predecessor to Mercury Asset Management), he joined a US securities firm in London and shortly thereafter co-founded a US stock broking firm, David Allsopp and Partners Limited, developing investment ideas for institutional investors in the UK, Continental Europe and latterly the US. The firm was acquired by a US financial services company in 1985 and in 1986 Jan relocated to New York to establish a corporate finance capability for the acquiror.  In 1988 he returned to the UK and joined Merrill Lynch as a director in their Mergers and Acquisitions group.  In 1990 Jan co-founded Ferghana Partners, a respected advisor on global transactions in the pharmaceuticals and life sciences industries.  Since 2002 Jan has served on the board of a number of companies in the UK, including Ilex which he founded in 2010.

Jan's particular skills lie in a cross-disciplinary approach to strategic business development, acquisitions, fundraising, financial management, planning, administration and governance, combined with a deep knowledge and experience of global equity markets.

Nick has a career of nearly 40 years within the financial services industry with experience within insurance companies, asset managers, global custodians and fund platforms.  He spent a number of years successfully running distribution teams within asset managers including Aetna, M&G and BNP Paribas.

He followed this working for both BNP Paribas and RBC's asset serving business managing strategic client relationships and complex business development opportunities.  Nick has experience of a number of complex asset manager strategic outsourcing projects.  In his time at RBC Nick built a successful European fund platform business and subsequently advised on its disposal to MFEX. 

More recently, and before joining ILEX, Nick has worked as an independent consultant.    He provides Insightful and strategic consulting services, management of strategic project initiatives from concept to delivery and intellectual capital to support senior management’s strategic planning and decision making.  He has worked with a number of asset managers, advising them on their approach to value assessment of UK authorised funds and more recently joined Lazard Fund Managers as a non-executive director.

Linda Witcombe, Director, Head of Client Liaison

Linda has worked closely with Antony John for some 20 years. She started her career at Hill Samuel, continuing to Lombard Odier, IMS, BNP FundQuest, the ECU Group and Brompton Asset Management and in 2012 joined Ilex.

Linda’s particular skills include business administration, project coordination, client liaison and record keeping and general organisation of meetings, travel and schedules.