Richard van den Bergh

Richard van den Bergh is the Chairman of Palace Ventures.

Richard has over 35 years’ business experience spanning a wide range of industries and geographies. He started his career with Arthur Andersen in London and Geneva, qualifying as a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants for England and Wales in 1976. His subsequent career was with WS Atkins Group, Battelle Institute in Germany and the InterMatrix Group, where he was Managing Director. Following the sale of much of the InterMatrix business in 2000, he joined Hutchison 3G, initially to support the bid process for the UK 3G license. On winning the latter, he was appointed to the Executive Board as Products and Marketing Director.

Richard is Chairman of EnQii Holdings, Chairman of VS Design Works, and a Non-Executive Director of Oracle Tanker Chartering.

Richard has an MA in Economics from Cambridge University and speaks German. He is authorised by the FSA as an Investment Manager and Corporate Finance Advisor.

Andy Halsall 

Andy is the Chief Executive Officer of Palace Ventures.

Andy has over 15 years experience in private equity and the management of both small and large businesses. His career has included IBM, AMS Management Systems (a strategy and technology consulting firm), McKinsey & Company, DART Transactions Ltd (which he founded), and nCoTec Ventures (TMT focused private equity manager now called Frontiers Capital). He also worked at Orange where he was Director of Strategic Investments and later became Director of Product Delivery responsible for the rollout of Orange’s global product portfolio.

Andy has a First Class BSc (Hons) degree in Computer Science from Bradford University, holds an MBA from the London Business School and speaks Spanish. He is authorised as an Investment Manager by the Financial Services Authority.

Matthew Barnes

Matthew Barnes is a Director of Palace Ventures and Head of its Corporate Advisory Division.

Matthew qualified as a corporate lawyer with Mayer Brown Rowe & Maw, where he specialised in corporate finance. He then moved into investment banking, initially with Samuel Montagu (now HSBC Investment Bank), subsequently with Granville Investment Bank (now part of the Baird Group) and then NatWest Bank. Through his work at NatWest Bank, Matthew advised Digital Impact (interactive television) in which he became Business Development Director and later Managing Director. He significantly increased revenues and profitability before overseeing its sale to YooMedia plc. Matthew then became Managing Director of VS Design Works (design and marketing services specialist), and remains a Non-Executive Director. He has recently been involved with a number of sports ventures, a medical device business and a digital signage specialist.

Matthew has a law degree from Birmingham University and holds the Advanced Corporate Finance Diploma from the Corporate Finance Institute. He is authorised as a Securities Representative by the Financial Services Authority.

Darren Wilkinson

Darren Wilkinson is an Investment Manager and Associate Director of Palace Ventures.

Darren has over 10 years’ strategy, corporate development and investment experience primarily focused on the telecoms and technology sector. Prior to Palace Ventures, Darren worked at Sprint where he was involved with international M&A activity, divestments, alliance / partnership development and organic growth business planning. He previously worked with Ernst & Young EMEA management consulting team based in Paris, and with a start-up business focusing on mobile handset distribution.

Darren holds a First Class BA (Hons) Degree in Economics from Leeds University, and an MSc in Economics and Econometrics from Università Bocconi (Milan). Darren speaks Spanish, Italian and French. He is a Charterholder of the Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) Institute and holds the Islamic Finance Qualification of the Ecole Supérieure des Affaires (Lebanon) and the Securities and Investment Institute (UK). Darren is a member of the UK Society of Investment Professionals and is authorized as an Investment Manager by the Financial Services Authority.

Lord Anthony St John of Bletso

Lord Anthony St John of Bletso is a Non-Executive Director of Palace Ventures.

Lord St John is a qualified solicitor with a Masters in Maritime Law. He was the formerly Managing Director of Globix UK, and a Non-Executive Director of WMRC plc and Pecaso Ltd.

He is a Crossbench Member of the House of Lords and a Member of the House of Lords European Union Subcommittee “A” on Trade, Finance and Foreign Affairs. Lord St John is currently retained as a consultant to Merrill Lynch, specialising in parliamentary liaison and emerging markets. He is also Chairman of Prime Solutions, Chairman of OCRA, a Non-Executive Director of Regal Petroleum, Non-executive Chairman of Estate and General, Chairman of the Governing Board of Certification International, Chairman of Spiritel plc and a Director of Prime Business Solutions.