LAECEUM
STRATEGY I ADVISORY I DATA I ANALYTICS
Ravi Chauhan
Ravi is the Founder & Managing Director of Laeceum and has 20 years experience in corporate strategy, M&A and management consulting.
He was most recently the London Partner at Ares & Co, the Paris-based strategy consultancy prior to which he led Group Corporate Development and the London Branch of Depfa Bank, the specialist public sector financier and covered bond issuer. In his early career, Ravi was a strategy consultant at Deloitte and a strategic research analyst at EY and Informa Financial Intelligence.
Ravi holds an MPhil from the University of Cambridge and an LLB from University College London.
John Mould
John is Senior Adviser at Laeceum an a former C-level banking professional with over 30 years of experience in strategy, operations, risk, finance and SME lending ,data and analytics.
John was most recently the CEO of ThinCats where he presided over a four fold increase in lending and a shift away from a crowd-based funding model to an institutional-only funding model. Prior to ThinCats, John held senior leadership roles including the offices of COO and CFO at a number of asset managers and investment banks including Hermes, New Star and Morgan Stanley.
John is a qualified accountant with a B.Eng from Bristol University and is a Non-Executive Chairman of CrowdProperty, a leading UK specialist property lending company.
Jonathan Thompson
Jonathan is Senior Adviser at Laeceum and has extensive UK banking, corporate finance and debt capital advisory experience.
He was most recently CEO and co-founder of Bank North, an SME focused UK banking challenger, where he piloted the firm through a full UK PRA/FCA regulatory bank licence approval process; development of an integrated cloud-native technology platform; and subsequent launch of lending activities, before completing an asset disposal to its anchor investor in Q4 2022. He has extensive banking experience, having also worked as divisional managing director for Santander UK; as director of structured finance with Lloyds Banking Group; and as a director of debt capital and corporate finance advisory with Deloitte.
Jonathan is a chartered banker and has a BSc (Hons) in Financial Services from UMIST (University of Manchester). He is also a Board Adviser to Answer Digital, a leading independent digital transformation consultancy.
Charles Hayes
Charles is a Senior Adviser at Laeceum and has over 30 years of experience in asset management, trading and risk management.
He has most recently advised the German Finance Ministry on its effective management and liquidation of a €100bn portfolio of assets acquired from a number of bad banks. Prior to this, he developed many derivatives and cash businesses relating to credit, equities and currencies at Bankers Trust and HVB.
Charles has an MA in Engineering Science from Oxford University.
Kieran Walsh
Kieran is a Senior Adviser at Laeceum is a banking professional with over 25 years of experience with expert knowledge of risk management, liquidity and capital obligations.
Kieran has worked in a variety of senior positions, managing multiple teams across various jurisdictions while working in leading investment banks in London and recently as Group Treasurer at Depfa Bank restructuring the balance sheet post bailout. His focus has always been on innovation and starting new business lines, possessing a deep knowledge of derivatives, asset management and all associated funding instruments from money markets to undated subordinated, secured and unsecured aligned with an understanding international debt markets investors’ preferences and requirements.
Kieran is a qualified accountant with an MBS & B.Comm from University College Dublin and is an Independent Non-Executive Director of BNP Paribas, Ireland.
Theodor Bingley
Theodor is an Intern Analyst at Laeceum and is currently a second-year undergraduate student of history, politics & economics at University College London.
Theodor has a keen interest in corporate finance and corporate development and plays a lead role in building Laeceum’s advisory proposition with a focus on disruptive high growth fintech businesses and business model development and financial modelling.
Theodor has prior experience as a summer intern at EY Corporate Finance's M&A division and at asset manager Ipopema TFI's global equities division.
Ajay Chohan
Ajay is an Intern Analyst at Laeceum and is currently a second-year undergraduate chemistry student at University College London.
Ajay has a keen interest in buy-side M&A, LBOs and capital markets. Ajay plays a role in leading crowdfunding initiatives for SME clientele with a focus on capital raising solutions and building pitchbooks. He has also engaged in producing pricing model deliverables with high-level analysis.
Ajay has prior experience briefly interning with HSBC, RBC Capital Markets and American Express. He is also the Chairman at the UCL Consulting Society.
Aryan Shah
Aryan is an Intern Analyst at Laeceum and is currently a second-year undergraduate statistics, economics & finance student at University College London.
Aryan has a keen interest in data analytics and corporate strategy and plays a lead role in supporting the development of Laeceum's data analytics capabilities and strategic initiatives.
Aryan has prior experience as a summer intern at asset and wealth manager ASK’s products division and at an Insure-tech start-up, INXChange, for product development and investor relations
Sum of the Parts
We draw our team from related but distinct disciplines. We truly believe in the sum of the parts theory which is why we never hire the same type of person twice. We complement each other perfectly and a shared belief in the Laeceum principles galvanizes our sense of common purpose and identity.