Anthony O’Connor is a Corporate / M&A Partner at the international law firm Kinstellar and the Co-Head of the firm-wide Private EquityPractice. Anthony has extensive experience advising private equity and venture capital investors on all aspects of high-profile investments in Central and Eastern Europe, including identifying and managing key business risks, principal areas of sensitivity and motivating factors. His expertise includes advising on and negotiating share purchase agreements, investment and shareholder agreements, management warranty deeds and warranty and indemnity insurance, as well as management incentive plans, equity roll-overs and earn-outs. He has also built a strong reputation representing entrepreneurs and family businesses in relation to investments by global corporates and investors, providing strategic advice on the sale process. He graduated from the University of Queensland in 2002. He is a member of the Budapest Bar Association and a Solicitor of the Supreme Court of England and Wales.

Deputy Director & Head of Mandate Management at European Investment Fund (EIF)

Mr. Cottogni manages the regional business development team implementing the risk capital and debt products of the European Investment Fund. He acts as an Executive Director of JEREMIE Bulgaria, Istanbul Venture Capital Initiative, Portugal Ventura Capital Initiative and Green for Growth Fund.
Prior to joining the EIF, Mr. Cottogni worked as M&A Director and Head of Strategy at Telekom Austria and as senior banker at European Investment Bank and Credit Anstalt in Vienna, London, New York.
He has graduated with master degree in business from University of Innsbruck and from INSEAD. 

Chief Executive Officer Tokuda Hospital Sofia and Tokuda Medical Center
He is an executive with 14 years of experience in private equity and M&A advisory. Ilian has led Bedminster Capital (formerly Soros Investment Capital) office in Bulgaria for 8 years. He has experience in investing in various industries including cable, media and healthcare. Ilian has held directorship positions in Eurocom Cable, Digital City Media, Golden Pages, United Medical and United Health Insurance. From 2009 until leaving Bedminster, Ilian was Co-CEO of United Medical, the first private integrated healthcare provider in Bulgaria. Prior to Bedminster, Ilian worked for KPMG in Bulgaria BDO in the Netherlands. Ilian graduated from University of National and World Economy with a Master in Economics and Finance and University of Amsterdam with Master in International Finance. Currently, he is completing an Executive Master in Healthcare Administration at the University of Minnesota.

Managing Director, Mezzanine Management
 
Nik is a seasoned financial professional with over 15 years’ experience in investing and providing structured finance to companies in Central & Eastern Europe. In 2005, Nik joined Mezzanine Management, the first dedicated mezzanine fund manager for Central and Eastern Europe. It manages three funds with total funds under management of over EUR 570 million. The latest fund, Accession Mezzanine Capital III L.P. was raised at the start of 2011. The three funds have made 42 investments in over 10 countries in the region to date. Nik led several transactions including Devin, Bella Bulgaria and EuroIns in Bulgaria. 
Nik is a member of the supervisory board of several portfolio companies. Between 2000 and 2005 Nik was with VCP Capital Partners, a leading corporate finance advisory boutique in Central Europe, working on numerous local and cross-border buy-side and sell-side M&A-transactions as well as capital raising assignments. 
Nik is Austrian and lives in Vienna. He holds an MSc in Commerce from Vienna University of Economics and Business Administration and pursued various study programmes abroad.

Larisa Manastirli is the EBRD Director for Bulgaria since December 2015. Ms Manastirli has been with the EBRD for over 10 years. She joined the Bank in 2001 covering projects in the financial, infrastructure, agribusiness and power sectors and played a leading role in developing and implementing the special EBRD products and programs for the early transition countries. With growing tasks and exposures she covered a wider geography with particular involvement in Moldova, Ukraine and Armenia. In 2012 she joined the Black Sea Trade and Development Bank where she worked for five years on transactions in the financial sector, private equity and infrastructure in 11 countries of the Black Sea Region (Albania and Caucasus, Bulgaria, Greece, Moldova, Romania, Russia Turkey, Ukraine). During this period she was also sitting on advisory boards of various regional private equity funds. Larisa returned to the EBRD in early 2012 to lead the Bank’s office in the Kyrgyz Republic. In that capacity, she managed to significantly strengthen relationships with the government and development partners, raise the profile of the office and launch new initiatives as well as lead the team to deliver record high volume and number of investment operations. In her current position Ms Manastirli is responsible for the EBRD’s investments and operations in Bulgaria.
Larisa has BSs from the Moldovan Academy of Economic Studies and an MBA from the University of Wales. She is a member of ACCA since 2003.

Nikolay Kolev is a founder and managing partner of Koleff & Partners, a boutique financial advisory with focus on SMEs and mid corporates. Koleff & Partners offer the whole spectrum of financial advisory services - strategic business planning, financial strategy development and implementation, debt and equity raising, selling and buying business.
Before setting up Koleff & Partners, Nikolay has held numerous positions in finance, banking and management consulting. He was a CFO of the KFC operations in Bulgaria with main focus on strategic business planning, finance strategy, development and implementation of financial policies, initiatives for cost optimization and IT infrastructure updates. Prior to this role, he was a senior banker at DSK bank, leading the bank’s key accounts corporate banking center, which comprised 60% of the bank’s portfolio (BGN 1 billion). Before joining DSK, Nikolay held a Senior consultant role at Deloitte Bulgaria, focusing on performance improvement projects in different industries throughout the CEE region. He started his career in finance at UniCredit Bulbank as a Relationship manager in the Corporate banking department.
Nikolay holds an MBA from the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business. 

Investment Director at 3TS Capital Partners, a leading European growth capital technology investor.
Before 3TS, Mr. Stefanov was responsible for technology and media investments at Trafalgar Asset Managers, a Top3 European event-driven hedge fund and was a COO and analyst with an investment boutique focused on European Small & Mid Cap investments. Mr. Stefanov also served an internship with 3i Venture Capital in Germany and held management consulting and IT-industry positions during his early career.
Mr. Stefanov holds a BSc in Management Information Systems from the University for National and World Economy (Bulgaria) and MBA from INSEAD (France/Singapore). Fluent in English, German, Russian, Bulgarian, speaks also French and Italian.

Atanas Simeonov is CEO and owner of S Group Bulgaria, which invests in leading companies on the Bulgarian market, operating in different sectors of the economy - security, technology, engineering and real estate, etc. Part of the group is VIP Security, which Simeonov founded  together with his father in 1999. The security services company has won the position of an industry leader with more over than 4500 employees. In 2007 the company acquires 100% of the subsidiary of UniCredit Bulbank "Optima Financial Services", and for the period 2011-2014 purchases also 100% shares of "3S SOT" AD. From 2014 Atanas Simeonov is President of the Family Business Association, which works for developing and strengthening the family business in Bulgaria. Married with three sons. 

Ivailo Gospodinov is a managing partner at BlackPeak Capital, one of the selected fund managers by the European Investment Fund (EIF), which will manage a co-investment venture capital fund under the JEREMIE initiative. The Fund, already operating with an initial capital of 10 million euros, focuses on investing in small and medium enterprises.
Previously, Mr. Gospodinov was Managing partner of Entrea Capital. He has more than 10 years of M&A experience in numerous sell- and buy-side mandates, as well as a long corporate finance and audit experience.
Prior to joining Entrea Capital in 2013, Ivailo spent more than 8 years of M&A experience in Raiffeisen Investment, where he was a Managing Director for Bulgaria. There, he has been involved in a number of transactions, advising both large corporates and financial investors. He has lead the closing of more than 10 deals in the last few years, including one of the largest transactions on the Bulgarian market, such as the €1.1bn AIG acquisition of BTC from Novator in 2007 and the €230m Contour Global acquisition of TPP Maritsa East III from Enel.
Prior to that he was also a Director of Corporate Finance at Forem Consulting, where he was actively involved in a variety of sell and buy side mandates, as well as privatisations. Ivailo also spent 9 years at Andersen and E&Y as an Audit Manager leading the audits of a range of large companies.
Ivailo holds a BA in Business Administration from Portsmouth University and has successfully completed all ACCA exams.
Ivailo likes to play football and volleyball in his leisure time. He also loves hiking in the summer and skiing in the winter. 

VP Business Development at International Power Supply 

VP Business Development in IPS. Implementing the international market expansion strategy for the most advanced internationally recognized hybrid (Off-grid) system EXERON (www.exeron-power.com) -ees Award winner, as well as customized Telecom Outdoor Power Solutions. With footprint in 54 countries IPS is targeting Tower companies and Telecom Groups and Operators to integrate IPS top innovative Power solutions, leading to huge OPEX savings as a result of outstanding reduction of diesel consumption.

Yordan is an investment professional with experience in M&A and corporate finance. He began his career in Forem Consulting, where he worked on buy and sell-side transactions. After an internship with the investment banking team at HSBC (London), he joined EuroHold Group, a publicly listed financial institution in Bulgaria. He ultimately became the head of investment banking of Euro-Finance Bulgaria, part of EuroHold Group, the most established local investment intermediary and led several strategic acquisitions, capital raisings, public listings, divestments and deal structurings in a variety of sectors. Before joining NEVEQ as an investment manager, he headed business planning and development at Philip Morris International (Bulgaria affiliate). 

Yordan holds a BA in Business Administration from the American University in Bulgaria and is fluent in English. 

Tanya Karageorgieva is Managing Director, Head of CFA of UniCredit Bulbank and is responsible for this business area since 2010. She has over 17 years of experience in the area of mergers and acquisitions, structuring of debt issues and equity transactions. Before UniCredit she was Associate Director in the financial advisory practice of Deloitte Bulgaria.

Tanya has led complex transactions related to mergers and acquisitions, concessions, financial restructurings involving multiple teams from different countries and with different expertise, advising strategic investors, private equity funds, government bodies and entities.

She has participated in most major transactions on the Bulgarian market in energy and infrastructure sectors, telecommunications and media, finance.

Tanya has graduated the American University in Bulgaria (AUBG) and is a Certified Financial Analyst (CFA).