Board of Directors

Philip Best is the Chairman of QUAERO CAPITAL’s Board. He is also a Founding Partner of the company and a Portfolio Manager.

He started his career as a fund manager at Warburg Investment Management in 1983 initially as a trainee, then managing the Mercury European Income Fund. In 1987, he joined Enskilda Securities as a broker specialising in European small cap companies. In 1994 he established and ran the Paris office of The Europe Company Limited, a specialist research-driven European small cap brokerage (purchased by Jefferies & Co in 2000).

In 2003, he launched The Argonaut Fund, a fund he still manages today.

Philip Best graduated from Oxford University. He worked in London and Paris before he settled in Geneva. He is bilingual in English and French.

Gérard Bourret was General Manager and Chairman of the management board of OFI Asset Management (since 2015) for 33 years.

Gérard was the driving force of the OFI Group’s historical foothold as an asset management company in France. He has enabled OFI AM to become one of the leading market players, forerunner in the field of SRI in the French asset management landscape. He unified the OFI Group by steering the acquisition of ADI Alternative Investments and the subsequent integration of MACIF Gestion. Gérard was also actively involved in setting up OFI’s offering in the management of real assets (infrastructure investments and real estate) as well as unlisted assets.

Gérard Bourret graduated from IHEDN and CHEDE and is a chartered accountant. Gérard remains a member of the Board of Directors of Matmut.

In 2005, Edgar Brandt founded Edgar Brandt Advisory SA, a management and private equity consulting firm. Before, he was the Managing Partner in charge of Arthur Andersen Switzerland (Consulting Division) where he began his career in 1986. From 2002 to 2005 he was the Managing Director of Bearingpoint, the new venture which took over Arthur Andersen’s assets.

He has 20 of years experience in Audit and Consulting, during which he had the opportunity to serve customers in all sectors, from financial services to luxury goods. He has personally advised more than 100 companies and been involved as partner on more than 200 mandates.

Edgar began his career in 1986 as a financial auditor. In 1990, he spent one year in the London office, working for the Financial Market Group. In 1993, he created the business consulting division of Andersen in Switzerland. In 1997, he was nominated Partner with Andersen. From 2000 until the dissolution of  Andersen in 2002, he was Managing Partner leading the Consulting Division for Switzerland.

Edgar holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Business Administration from HEC at the Lausanne University and a Master’s Degree in Computing and Organization. He also passed with success the Swiss Federal Diploma and is a Certified Public Accountant since 1992. Edgar is an active member of several professional organizations and is board Member of public and private companies.

Mark Ebert is a member of Quaero Capital’s Board of Directors.

He began his career with Price Waterhouse in Chicago and London. He then joined Citicorp Investment Bank – London in the Corporate Finance / M&A Department responsible for transatlantic M&A advisory. He joined UBS in London as Head of European M&A, becoming Senior Managing Director – Global Co-ordinator of M&A, based in Zurich. He became co-head of Panmure Gordon in London, an Institutional Broker and Corporate Finance Adviser focussed on UK & European high growth sectors.

He then pursued his career as a Member of the Executive Committee and Head of Lombard Odier’s Investment Banking Division in Geneva.  He was responsible for the bank’s Private Equity activities as well as Securities Trading, Equity Brokerage, and M&A. He then founded Quadrum Partners in Zurich, providing corporate finance advisory services to European Institutional Investment Managers.

He later joined the Fortune Group, London, as Chairman.  Fortune advised institutional investors on hedge fund strategies and ran several Hedge Funds of Funds. After Close Brothers acquired Fortune, he became a Managing Director and was responsible for developing Close’s Real Asset investment strategy, before joining QUAERO CAPITAL.

Mark’s degrees inlcude BSc, Gdip, and MSc.  He qualified as a Certified Public Accountant.

Christina Rancic is a member of Quaero Capital’s Board of Directors.

Previously, she worked for 20 years with H&M Hennes & Mauritz in their head office in Geneva. She held various positions including: Head of Personnel, Head of Accounting Department and Deputy General Manager. She had additional responsibility for external relations, e.g. professional organisations, government, unions and insurance firms.

She was also a board member between 2003-2020 and held the role of President during a 10-year tenure at COPRE, a Swiss Pension Scheme based in Geneva with assets under management exceeding CHF 3 billion.

Christina has a degree in Industrial and Commercial Studies specializing in finance from the University of Geneva.