Mark Joseph

Mark Joseph is a co-founder and Managing Partner of EMK Capital, a London-headquartered private equity firm he established in 2015 alongside Edmund Lazarus, a friend and colleague of more than 30 years. At EMK, Joseph and Lazarus jointly oversee the overall management of the firm as well as the sourcing, acquisition, value creation, and exit of investments. EMK positions itself as a partnership-driven buyout investor that backs management teams to grow established businesses across Western Europe.

Before founding EMK, Joseph spent roughly eight years (2007–2015) as one of the founding partners of Oakley Capital Private Equity, one of the earlier partners of that firm. His track record spans a range of TMT, consumer, and services deals associated with the Oakley era, including web-hosting and internet businesses (Host Europe Group, Intergenia), online marketplaces and comparison platforms (Verivox, Parship/Facile), specialist lending (Bluestep), and education (Cognita).

Earlier in his career, Joseph worked in investment banking at UBS Investment Bank (formerly SG Warburg), where he rose to Managing Director and, by the firm's account, advised on over $60 billion of transactions, primarily in the European TMT sectors. This M&A advisory background underpins EMK's emphasis on complex, cross-border and carve-out situations.

Joseph qualified as a Chartered Accountant with PricewaterhouseCoopers and holds an Honours degree in Economics from the University of Manchester. He describes personal interests in travel, economics, and emerging technologies. In aggregate he is described as having around 30 years of private equity investment and financial-advisory experience.

• Control, not minority/seed: EMK makes majority investments and partners closely with management teams — the opposite of an angel/seed profile. The stub label "Angel Investors / Seed Round" does not reflect the firm's actual strategy.
• Sectors: Business services, technology/TMT, consumer, industrials, and education — areas mapping to Joseph's banking and Oakley-era TMT expertise.
• Geography: Primarily Western Europe (UK, Nordics, Benelux, Italy, DACH), targeting established, growing companies.
• Value-creation playbook: Buy-and-build (bolt-on acquisitions), international expansion, and operational transformation; EMK favors situations such as founder/family successions, corporate carve-outs, and consolidation plays.
• Scale: Invests through successive institutional funds (Fund I ~£575m hard cap in 2017; Fund II ~€1.5bn hard cap in 2020; a larger Fund III raised thereafter), enabling sizeable equity checks and larger platform deals.