Jeremy Coller

Jeremy Coller (born 17 May 1958) is a British financial executive and philanthropist. He is Chief Investment Officer and Executive Chairman of Coller Capital, the firm he founded in 1990. Financial News has voted Coller one of the most influential people in private equity in each of the past four years. The publication also named him 'Personality of the Decade' in Europe in 2013, to acknowledge his innovation in private equity and the ‘industrialisation’ of the secondaries market. As well as being Chairman of the Jeremy Coller Foundation , his vehicle for philanthropic activities, he sits on the Boards of the Coller Institute for Private Equity at London Business School and the Coller Institute for Venture at Tel Aviv University . He is a member of the Advisory Council of The Elders .

Early Life and Education

Coller was born in London on 17 May 1958. He attended Carmel College and holds a Master's degree in Philosophy from the University of Sussex, and a BSc (Hons) in Management Sciences from Manchester University School of Management. He also took the Diplome Cours de Civilisation at the Sorbonne in Paris. After building a successful career in private equity, Coller was awarded an Honorary Fellowship by London Business School in 2011. In 2013, he received an Honorary Doctorate from Tel Aviv University.^[1]

Business career

Coller's early career was spent as Head of Equity Research at Fidelity International. He then joined ICI Pension Plan as a Sector Fund Manager, before being promoted to Venture and Buyout Manager. In this role, Coller pioneered the purchase of secondary positions in private equity.

In 1990, he started the first European private equity secondaries fund. Since then, Coller Capital has grown to become a globally recognized leader in the private equity secondaries market. Jeremy Coller is today recognised for leading the industrialisation of private equity secondaries.

He is Chief Investment Officer and Executive Chairman of Coller Capital, which has completed some of the largest transactions in the private equity secondary market. The firm employs more than 160 people; it is headquartered in London, with offices in New York and Hong Kong. In 2012, Coller Capital closed its sixth secondaries fund, Coller International Partners VI, with total capital commitments of $5.5 billion and backing from almost 200 of the world’s leading institutional investors. Jeremy Coller is keenly interested in promoting entrepreneurialism, in the UK and worldwide, and offers frequent support for the commercialization of innovative ideas.

Philanthropy

The Jeremy Coller Foundation is a strategic grant-making organisation, focused on a number of programme areas, including the Coller Institute of Private Equity at London Business School, the Coller Institute of Venture at Tel Aviv University, Animal Welfare and Human Health programmes.

Areas currently under research for future work include: sentient rights and duties; pensions as a tool for economic reform; and career mapping.

The Foundation support the work of The Elders, of which Coller has been on the Advisory Council since 2012.^[2]

Coller Institute of Private Equity at London Business School

The Coller Institute of Private Equity – the result of a major donation^[3] to London Business School in 2008 by the Jeremy Coller Foundation – aims to be the world’s pre-eminent institute for research in the field of private equity.

The Institute represents a bridge between the academic and practitioner worlds. It is dedicated to the rigorous analysis and synthesis of data to establish and promote new insights and so facilitate a better understanding of the industry.

Integral to the vision of the Institute is the provision of world class education both to students and executives via a private equity elective and the Coller Institute MasterClass.^[4]

The Institute publishes Private Equity Findings, a journal showcasing private equity- and venture capital-related research from leading academic thinkers worldwide.

Coller Institute of Venture at Tel Aviv University

The Coller Institute of Venture at Tel Aviv University was established in 2013. The Institute’s mission is to advance the venture ecosystem globally. The Institute’s work is centred on three objectives:

• Identify the conditions that will lead to compelling returns for long-term capital (e.g. pension plans, foundations, sovereign wealth funds) from investing in venture capital
• Investigate and communicate best practice in technology translation from governments, universities and corporates
• Promote innovation in policy-making and planning, encouraging governments to adopt best practices in legal frameworks, fiscal incentives, behavioural economics and other parts of the public policy agenda
• The Institute publishes Venture Findings, a journal aimed at deepening our understanding of innovation and the venture ecosystem.

Animal welfare

The Jeremy Coller Foundation is actively engaged in shaping the debate on the unsustainable practices of animal factory farming.^[5] The Foundation is taking action on three fronts:

• Influencing capital flows by exploring the relationship between investment in animal factory farming and financial returns
• Measuring practices in farm animal welfare by supporting the development of the Business Benchmark on Farm Animal Welfare for investors to assess corporate animal welfare policies and performance
• Campaigning for tighter regulation on the use of antibiotics on farm animals

Human health and the misuse of antibiotics

The Foundation is also supporting activities to better understand and fight one of the most pressing public health issues today: resistance to antibiotics http://www.jeremycollerfoundation.org/programmes/human-health. The Foundation is the main funder of the Alliance to Save Our Antibiotics, which is engaged in promoting better legislation for appropriate use of antibiotics on humans and other animals. The Foundation has also commissioned epidemiological research on the causes and determinants of antibiotics resistance, with the final objective of influencing the global public health action plan.

Honours and awards

Coller has won numerous awards and has often been honoured for his contribution to the private equity and venture capital industries. These include:

• Being named one of the Most Influential People in Private Equity by Financial News in 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2013
• Being voted Private Equity Personality of the Decade by Financial News^[6] (awarded in 2013)

Outside his professional achievements, Jeremy received an Honorary Doctorate from Tel Aviv University in 2013.^[7] Specific mention was given to his vision in guiding the evolution of private equity as an asset class, and his commitment to the worldwide teaching of research in entrepreneurship and innovation, as a means of bolstering the economy. In 2011, he also received an Honorary Fellowship from London Business School. In 2008, he was the recipient of the University of Manchester’s Outstanding Alumnus Award.^[8]

Books authored by Jeremy Coller

Splendidly Unreasonable Inventors: The Lives, Loves, and Deaths of 30 Pioneers Who Changed the World.^[9]

External links

• www.collercapital.com
• www.jeremycollerfoundation.org

References

Private equity and venture capital investors Investment strategy Buyout Venture Growth Mezzanine Secondaries History History of private equity and venture capital Early history of private equity Private equity in the 1980s Private equity in the 1990s Private equity in the 2000s Investor types Private equity investors Venture capitalists Corporate raiders