Team
Haseeb Aziz
Managing Partner
Haseeb has over 18 years’ experience in providing all types of debt and equity type capital to companies in Europe.
Prior to Harwood Private Capital, Haseeb was a Managing Director and the European head of HIG WhiteHorse, HIG Capital’s private debt business, for 4 years. He spent 10 years as a Partner at Hutton Collins, a European subordinated debt and preferred equity fund manager.
Haseeb’s professional experience has also included leveraged finance at Merrill Lynch, strategy consulting at Marakon, private debt placements at Deutsche Bank and M&A at Morgan Stanley.
Haseeb has a BA Honours from Oxford University and an MBA from INSEAD.
Christopher Mills
Christopher is a non-executive director of Harwood Private Capital and is CEO of Harwood Capital LLP, which he founded in 2011.
He has over 42 years investment experience in quoted and unquoted smaller companies. Harwood's flagship investment trust, North Atlantic Smaller Companies, has generated annualised returns of c. 14% NAV per share since Mr Mills began managing it in the early 1980s.
Christopher was a founder shareholder and CIO of J O Hambro Capital Management from 1993 until its sale in 2011, where it had >£9bn AUM.
Jerry Wilson
Partner
Jerry has over 25 years’ experience in providing debt and mezzanine capital to companies in the UK and Ireland.
Prior to Harwood Private Capital, Jerry was a Partner at HIG WhiteHorse, HIG Capital’s private debt business. Previously he founded Chenavari’s UK Private Credit business and set up Palio Capital Partners. Jerry spent 16 years at RBS, latterly as Managing Director of their middle market leveraged finance group.
Jerry has a BMus (Hons) from the University of Surrey.
Jonathan Wheeler
Partner
Prior to joining Harwood Private Capital, Jonathan spent 11 years at European Capital where he predominantly focused on investing into UK and Northern European SMEs.
To compliment his investment track record with operational experience, Jonathan spent a year as interim UK MD for an Australian software firm.
Jonathan’s career started at Barclays Leveraged Finance where he provided mid-market private equity firms with both senior and subordinated debt finance.
Jonathan has a BEng in Mechanical Engineering from Cardiff University.
James Stuart
Head of Fund Accounting
James joined Harwood Capital LLP in November 2021. Previously he held roles as a financial controller at Chorus Capital, a private debt fund, and as a senior investment accountant for European private equity investor AlpInvest, part of the Carlyle Group.
Prior to that he was at KPMG in the financial services audit department, where he was a team leader for large asset management audits, including FTSE100 companies.
James is a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland, having joined in 2017. He holds a first class bachelor’s degree in accounting and finance from the University of Exeter.
Paul Leyland
Investment Director
Paul has over 15 years’ experience advising and investing into SMEs in the North of England.
Prior to joining Harwood Private Capital, Paul was an Investment Manager at Maven Capital Partners, focussed on growth capital and venture investing. Previously he spent 6 years at Seneca Partners, initially in the Corporate Finance department before helping to establish their Private Equity business.
Paul is a Fellow Member of the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants.
James Western
Associate Director
James joined Harwood Private Capital from Barclays, where he spent 5 years in roles across debt, structured finance, and restructuring.
During this time he provided public and private companies with debt finance to support growth, acquisitions and leveraged buy-outs. James also spent time in the restructuring and workout team, managing exposure to distressed companies across EMEA and APAC.
James has a BA in Politics from the University of Sheffield.