The people behind Tatu.

Most investors haven’t spent time on the shop floor; and most operators haven’t spent time in an investment committee.

Nico has spent his career crossing between the two.

On the investing side: he joined the founding team of a venture fund that grew to £350 million across two funds, then spent years at an institutional buyout fund backed by the British Business Bank - papers written, board meetings sat, deals done.

On the operating side: he parachuted into what was a £50 million streetwear retailer post acquisition, where the turnaround he helped to lead added £4 million of EBITDA in twelve months.

He is at his best in the gap between the warehouse and the boardroom, which (although we’re biased) is where most of the value in a small business lives.

Turns things round, then finds the money to make them bigger.

After university, at twenty-four, Mark was handed the keys to a pub in Borough - £150 a week and the flat upstairs. Eleven months later, revenue was ten times what he’d walked into, and he’d been threatened enough to decide he’d rather get people drunk in a suit than in jeans. That pub is now the first of a group across South East London.

In the City he ran a freight derivatives desk, took it from sixth in the market to first, and monthly revenue from $60,000 to $360,000. Then, with his old mentor, he was one of the partners who built a hedge fund platform from nothing to over $610 million across five strategies - $325 million of it through Mark’s own introductions. The placement firm they co-founded went on to raise over £100 million in private markets. Since then, he’s sat beside the owners of private companies through MBOs, raises and buyouts - watching, too often, what happens to good people who run out of road.

Ask him about his family business and Liverpool Football Club.