Meet the founders: Investors who operate. Operators who invest.
Alex Leslie, Co-founder
alex@voltageventures.com
Alex has spent almost twenty years buying small European businesses with EPIC Investment Partners, where he was a Partner and serial committee-joiner.
He has led a number of transactions including Luceco, Rayware, Process Components and Bighead. Along the way, he sat on the Investment Committee, ran the firm’s deal-sourcing efforts, and created their portfolio value-creation committee.
He graduated from Oxford with a first-class degree in Human Biological and Social Sciences before confusing his allegiances by heading to Cambridge University’s Judge Business School for a Master’s in Business.
When he’s not working, Alex is usually on a football pitch (he represented his university several hamstrings ago), a tennis court, halfway up a mountain questioning his life’s choices, or relaxing at a piano.
Henri van Lennep, Co-founder
henri@voltageventures.com
Henri specialises in driving value creation, growth and large-scale transformation across complex businesses. He has worked across TMT, industrials and technology, with deep experience in growth acceleration, cost optimisation and organisational restructuring.
After nine years in management consulting with Delta Partners and BCG delivering major transformation programmes and commercial diligences, he joined Virgin Media O2 as Director of Value Creation & Operations, deploying a £70m programme and building a 20-person team.
Most recently, he served as an Operating Partner in Bregal Investments’ Growth Factors team, supporting multiple leadership teams and contributing to two boards.
In his free time, he flies small planes and experiments with new hobbies, most of which confirm he should keep his day job.
Meet the Advisory Board: senior operators with deep experience across Europe & UK B2B sectors
Robin Palmer
Advisory Board member
Robin worked closely with Alex as Chairman on both the Process Components and Bighead deals, through to successful exits.
He and Alex have spent years together on the ground — visiting factories, meeting teams, and getting to know industrial product and service businesses.
Robin has experience across a broad range of industrial technology sectors through senior management positions at Mather+Platt, Wormald (now Tyco), Plessey plc and GE (Corporate and Business Unit - Business Development and Strategic Planning). He then led the industrial technology team in Corporate Finance at Baring Brothers/ING Baring.
Recently he has had NED/Chairman and advisory roles for several SMEs.
Robin holds an MA Engineering degree from the University of Cambridge, MBA from Cranfield University and FT NED Diploma.
Gatien Gillon
Advisory Board member
Gatien is CEO of CWS Hygiene, where he leads a major European hygiene and services platform backed by Haniel, spanning washroom, floorcare and wellbeing solutions.
Before joining CWS, he served as Group COO of Rubix, Europe’s leading industrial products distributor, overseeing a £3bn+ business with more than 8,500 employees.
Earlier in his career he was part of the Bain Capital Portfolio Team, and held senior roles at Verisure and McKinsey, bringing deep expertise in product, technology strategy and commercial execution.
He holds a Master’s degree in Engineering from CentraleSupélec.