BRIAN PHILLIPS
Brian is Chairman of Ethos Partners and a veteran of the U.K. private equity industry..
After a career in private equity where he was investing other people’s money, he stepped out of full time employment in 2014 to concentrate on managing his own family assets. Having invested alongside like-minded friends for a number of years, he realised that there are many people who are attracted to the concept of private equity and who find it difficult to build a portfolio of assets in this category. For this reason, he teamed up with Julian to found Ethos with a view to allowing investors to share in the deals that he and Julian are investing in. He passionately believes in the asset class and is a significant investor in all Ethos deals. A founding principle of the business is that there should be alignment of interest among investors and investment by staff alongside Brian and Jules is encouraged.
Brian made his way into the private equity world after gaining a degree from the faculty of law at Glasgow University and becoming a CA with KPMG. He very nearly chose a career as a professional footballer but given an almost embarrassing lack of offers and talent, he was perhaps wise to opt for the world of numbers.
His first exposure to unquoted investment was with the Industrial and Commercial Finance Corporation (“ICFC” now 3i plc) back in the days before the term “private equity” had been invented (1984). Since then he has had experience of investing in companies of differing sizes and operating across a wide range of sectors with a number of the industry’s leading players including Bridgepoint, Legal & General Ventures and Greenhill Capital Partners where he set up their UK business
In his spare time, Brian endures golf, tolerates running and quite enjoys good wine. Any residual spare time is spent keeping up to date with the world’s most successful domestic football club of which he is a lifelong supporter.
