Jill Williams

Jill Williams is a chartered accountant and career private-equity investor based in Manchester. She holds an MA in French and Philosophy and trained as a chartered accountant at PwC, where she spent several years in the corporate finance and corporate tax teams. She has described her philosophy background as shaping an investor's instinct to question assumptions and maintain a skeptical, evidence-driven perspective.

Before moving into fund investing, she worked with the Wheatsheaf Group, a long-term investor in food and agriculture businesses, and then spent time in London as an Investment Director at RJD Partners, backing companies across the UK mid- and lower-mid market. In May 2018 she joined Mercia Fund Managers' EV Growth team in Manchester (King Street office) as an Investment Director, working alongside Investment Director Wayne Thomas and Investment Executive Melanie Hooper, shortly after the £45.1 million EV Growth II fund closed in December 2017. Her mandate was to originate and transact new deals and manage portfolio companies, investing development capital and buyout funding into high-growth UK SMEs.

At Mercia she progressed to Deputy Fund Principal, Private Equity Funds, and became Head of ESG, leading the firm's responsible-investment programme; in 2021 she took on the ESG project-leader role and undertook BVCA (British Private Equity & Venture Capital Association) responsible-investment training. She brings more than 15 years of private-equity investment experience.

She has since joined BGF (the Business Growth Fund) as a Partner / Regional Portfolio Partner for the North & Midlands, working with entrepreneurs and business owners across the North West and Midlands as part of BGF's portfolio team. She is also an active participant in Level 20, the organisation promoting women in private equity, and has spoken publicly about resilience, mentorship and the value of diverse boardrooms.

• Backs established, high-growth UK SMEs — not early-stage/seed startups — with proven management teams looking for buyout, development or expansion capital.
• At Mercia's EV Growth II fund, targeted buyout funding and development capital of up to c. £5.0 million per deal.
• Generalist sector approach, drawing on hands-on experience in business services, leisure & travel, education, IT services and food & agriculture.
• Strong regional focus on the North West and Midlands of England, backing management teams she can support close to home.
• A conviction that ESG is a value-creation lever, not a compliance exercise — in her words, wanting "ESG on all of our portfolio boards' agendas," using frameworks like the UN Principles for Responsible Investment as "a blueprint to follow," because "sound ESG principles are associated with improved business performance."
• Values founders/management who can withstand the ups and downs of scaling — she notes "you need resilience and tenacity… accepting it's a roller coaster helps."