The Team

Seonaid Mackenzie, is the Founder of award winning Sturgeon Ventures as of 1998 which began as a single family office, incubating companies and firms from that day – known as the Venture Catalyst. Sturgeon Ventures moved into the specialty of incubating Financial Services firms as well as individuals and in 2001 pioneered “Regulatory Incubation” for the first time as individuals became approved persons, under the Financial Services Authority migrating from The SFA and IMRO now the Financial Conduct Authority.

Seonaid is a Portfolio Manager, is on the Investment Committees and is on the Finance and Management Committee.

Seonaid’s career in financial services started in 1983 spanning the early years as a US Equity Institutional Stockbroker at well-known firms to launching the first paid independent research product in the UK in 1995, which was paid out of CSA to a corporate finance advisor, pre and post Sturgeon leading a number of transactions.

Seonaid has advised and managed numerous family office portfolios personally and has been involved in numerous investment committees to date, whilst also being a member of Fund Boards on and offshore.

Seonaid is a genuine out of the box thinker. Outside of her busy work schedule, she mentors and is a frequent speaker in schools on subjects including the journey of a female entrepreneur and looks after Sandy, the family Spaniel.

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Tom joined Sturgeon in 2011 as the Chief Operating Officer. Tom is a member of the Compliance & Risk Committee. A qualified Chartered Accountant, Tom previously was a co-founder of an investment management firm building it into a multi fund and multi manager business before resigning to take a sabbatical and then join Sturgeon.

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Sarah is a Designated Member of the Partnership, a member of the Compliance and Risk Committee, Internal Counsel and Compliance Officer for Sturgeon Ventures, and together with Seonaid Mackenzie sits as a member of the Management Committee and in most closed ended fund committees. Following an English degree at Oxford, Sarah qualified as a solicitor, joining Clifford Chance’s investment funds department, her time there including a year in Man Group’s derivative funds team in Switzerland. Sarah then spent eleven years at ING Group, first as a trading floor lawyer, then in the capital markets team, becoming head of debt capital markets for Russia and the CIS. Before joining Sturgeon in 2016, Sarah worked for five years at the Pemberton funds group as an inhouse legal and compliance advisor.

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Becky Neill is the Compliance Manager and a member of the Compliance and Risk Committee, with the compliance analysts reporting to her. She is responsible specifically for the monitoring of the Appointed Representative Firms within Sturgeon as well as general compliance support. Becky has over 15 years compliance experience previously working in Japanese and German Investment Banks in the city.

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Robin is a Senior Compliance Analyst and an Associate Member of CISI working to obtain Chartered Membership. He has over 18 years experience in the Finance industry in a variety of Compliance, Testing and Control roles. He is a former ski instructor who enjoys climbing (mostly indoors at the moment) and watching various sports.

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Terri is a Compliance Analyst. Terri is a member of the compliance team active in the monitoring of the Appointed Representative Firms within Sturgeon, assisting with SM&CR training, as well as general compliance support. Terri has over 20 years compliance experience and over 35 years industry experience having previously worked at an investment bank, an investment management firm and has been a secondee at the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA).
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Stephen joined the team in 2017 and is responsible for the risk monitoring of the liquid investment portfolios managed by Sturgeon. Having gained over 20 years of experience on both the buy and sell sides of the market, working within some of the largest banks and systematic hedge funds in London. He has held senior positions within both trading teams, portfolio risk and operational risk committees during his career.

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Sarah Mason is an Associate within the Compliance Team working across various projects including the onboarding of new ventures such as Appointed Representative Firms of Sturgeon Ventures and their Approved Persons, as well as Certified Persons within the Sturgeon itself. Sarah also supports firms that have spun out of Sturgeon and are now directly authorised. Sarah joined Sturgeon in 2024, having worked for 20 years in administrative roles.
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Stephanie is a Senior Compliance Analyst and a member of the Portfolio Management Oversight team. She has over 5 years’ experience in Compliance, leading on Financial Promotions for the firm, and over 25 years industry experience having previously managed international fixed income and currencies for institutional portfolios. She has a degree in Economics and in her spare time, she walks Howard the spaniel, plays tennis and practices yoga.

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Alex Brown, Senior Marketing Associate, is the longest standing member of the current team, having joined Sturgeon in 2008 as Seonaid’s Executive PA. Alex came to Sturgeon from Goldman Sachs, where she was the Assistant to two Senior Partners. She has had many roles throughout her tenure at Sturgeon, embracing our marketing role five years ago. Her activities include the co-ordination of new enquiries, liaising with the Sturgeon on-boarding team, through to the approvals of all new approved persons as they become fully embedded into the Sturgeon incubation journey. Alongside this, Alex also runs Seonaid’s busy work schedule.
Alex loves a challenge and spearheads Sturgeon’s volunteering and charity events, most recently, a 26 mile sponsored walk and Ride the Night.
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Joe joined Sturgeon Ventures in 2021 as an Operations Special Projects Analyst having gained a degree in Financial Mathematics. In his spare time, he enjoys playing football and basketball as well as exploring new parts of the countryside with his dog Trooper.

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Kirsten Bedford is an Executive Assistant to Seonaid as well as being responsible for managing all internal Senior Management and Committee meetings, and supporting Seonaid on internal projects.
Kirsten has over 15 years’ experience, having supported a number of UHNWIs in all aspects of their personal and professional lives, across a range of industries with interests spanning Politics, PR, Fashion, Retail, Philanthropy, Real Estate and Finance. Kirsten joins Sturgeon from an UHNW Single Family Office, where she was the Executive Assistant to the Principal.
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Sarah is an experienced Communications Officer with 3 decades of PR and Marketing. She began her career as a journalist in national magazines, transitioning to B2B more than 10 years ago. An accomplished PR and Marketing Director, she uses her editorial skills to create compelling and wide-ranging content for clients across the board. As an editor she has launched several magazines in the UK in sectors including healthcare, infrastructure and aviation alongside consumer magazines. She has an MA in Modern History from the University of Oxford.
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Liz, through TPG Design, started working with Sturgeon in 2013 and looks after their digital comms, including the website content, SEO and social media. In her spare time she is a very amateur runner and volunteers with the Wardrobe Team at Hampton Theatre sewing costumes for their productions.
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Partner, member of the Finance and the Management Committee of Sturgeon Ventures. Andrew Haggard has been working with Sturgeon Ventures for 14 years, and became acquainted with the firm when Peter Crowther merged his business with Haggards. Andrew’s background was as an entrepreneur and now as an Accountant for entrepreneurs
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Paul is a Non-Executive Advisor to Sturgeon Ventures; sitting on our Executive Management Committee. A PwC qualified accountant; Paul has over 30 years investment experience working primarily in the funds industry with Rothschild and Fidelity Investments, where Paul was a Managing Director From 1987-90. In 1991, Paul founded the Forsyth Partners Group, a multi-manager research and investment firm that managed almost USD 2 billion of assets which was sold in 2013. Paul has regularly chaired and presented papers at investment conferences around the world and has featured as a commentator on BBC World and CNBC.
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