Graham Tester

Graham Tester is the Chief Financial Officer / Head of Finance at Lion Capital LLP, a London-based private equity firm specializing in the consumer sector. He joined Lion Capital around 2011, initially serving roughly three years as the firm's Financial Controller before being promoted to lead its finance function. He also sits on Lion Capital's Operating Committee, which is chaired by co-founder Robert Darwent and includes Paul Totman.

Before Lion Capital, Tester spent about five years in the finance and investor-relations teams at Montagu Private Equity, and four years earlier with Northern Trust in Guernsey, where he managed fund administration for BC Partners' private equity funds. Across these roles he has accumulated more than two decades of experience in finance and accounting within the private equity industry. He is a Fellow of the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (FCCA).

His role is squarely on the finance, operations, and investor-relations side of a private equity firm — overseeing fund accounting, reporting, and the financial infrastructure of Lion Capital's funds — rather than sourcing or leading investments. Lion Capital itself was founded in 2004 by Lyndon Lea, Robert Darwent, and Neil Richardson (spinning out of the European operations of Hicks Muse Tate & Furst) and is headquartered in London's SW1 district, with an additional office in Los Angeles.

*Note: Tester is a firm CFO, not a check-writing investor. The following describes his employer Lion Capital LLP's investment focus, which is the relevant context for his professional profile.*

• Stage: Mid- and large-cap private equity buyouts and growth investments — not seed or angel.
• Sector: Consumer businesses "selling branded products" — spanning food & beverage, apparel, luxury goods, food distribution, and specialty retail.
• Approach: Acquiring established consumer brands and driving growth through operational improvement, brand development, and market expansion.
• Fund scale: Lion has raised at least three flagship funds — Fund I (2004, ~€820M), Fund II (2007, ~€2.0B), and Fund III (2010, ~€1.5B) — managing roughly €4.8B in aggregate, a scale far removed from seed-stage angel investing.