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1955-1965
Adrian Beecroft is a British venture capitalist, businessman and philanthropist. Based in London, United Kingdom, he was until recently Chairman of Dawn Capital and was for many years Chief Investment Officer at Apax, a well-known private equity group which he joined in 1984. As Apax grew, Adrian assumed responsibility for the London office and approval of all investments. He played a major part in the international expansion of the business, which now has over $20 billion under management with over 150 professionals in eight countries.
He is also involved in a number of charitable initiatives. Graduating from Queen’s College, Oxford in 1968, he holds a first-class degree in Physics and is an Honorary Fellow of the College. Additionally, he has an MBA from Harvard Business School, where he was a Harkness fellow and from where he graduated as a Baker Scholar. He is an active funder of the Beecroft Institute for Particle Physics and Cosmology at Oxford University in the UK, which he helped to found in 2003, and also for the Beecroft Building in Oxford, which researches theoretical, condensed matter and quantum physics.
Adrian Beecroft also supports Hymer’s College in Hull, and was a Trustee of the social impact charity, Impetus Trust. He is an active supporter of Chance to Shine, formerly ‘The Cricket Foundation’, which aims to bring cricket back into British state school education and where he was Chairman for six years. Through the Beecroft Trust, he has been able to sponsor the Oxford Academy, an Academy school focused on serving a deprived area within Oxford.
He has also supported several international philanthropic endeavours, such as the 2009 UNESCO Belize Barrier Reef initiative, which achieved the removal of the Belize Barrier Reef Reserve System from the List of World Heritage in Danger in July 2018.
His career has been centred around private equity and venture capital, specialising in IT investments, and he spent 25 years at Apax Partners, until retiring from his position as CIO in 2008. During this time, Adrian Beecroft served as the company’s representative on the boards of over 20 public and private companies, including Alkane Energy, Computacenter, and Healthcare at Home. He was elected to the BVCA Hall of Fame in 2009.