Michele has played a leading role in the growth of the sustainable and impact investing sector, both in the UK and globally. She was an adviser to the UK Treasury’s Social Investment Task Force in 2000, chaired the Community Development Finance Association from 2003-2005, chaired the UK National Advisory Board on Impact Investing (part of the Global Social Impact Investment Steering Group) from 2016-18, chaired a Global Working Group on Policy for the G7 Impact Investment Taskforce, sat on the BVCA Council, and played a key role in the UK Government’s Social Impact Investment Advisory Group from 2024-25.

She also served as a Non-Executive Director on the board of CDC (now British International Investment), the UK Development Finance Institution, from 2014-2022, and was a Trustee for the Bridges Impact Foundation from 2018-2024. She currently sits on the Board of GSG Impact.

Michele has over 30 years’ experience in sustainable and impact investing and international development finance, having previously worked with International Finance Corporation, the private sector financing arm of the World Bank Group, and with Shorebank Corporation, one of the leading community development banks in the USA, where she ran small business lending programmes in Russia, Central and Eastern Europe, and advised on microfinance in Bangladesh, the Middle East and Mongolia.

Michele has a BA Honours in Politics, Philosophy & Economics from Oxford University and an MBA from Georgetown University, Washington, DC. She was awarded an OBE for services to international development and social finance in the 2018 Queen’s Birthday Honours list.

He was CEO of the business from 2002 to 2024, overseeing Bridges’ investment activity across all its strategies and geographies, and personally led Bridges’ successful investments in The Gym Group, The Office Group, The Hoxton, Simply Switch and Viva Gym, among others.

In his new role as Executive Chair, Philip will continue to be involved in Bridges’ Investment Committees, while also providing strategic advice to Michele and the partners, as well as mentoring and supporting more junior members of the Bridges team.

Philip is also a regular speaker about investing for impact and the value of purpose in business.

Prior to Bridges, Philip managed two venture capital-backed businesses and a substantial pan-European business. He previously worked at Aiwa as Director and General Manager and was then appointed Managing Director of MWB Business Exchange Ltd, a serviced office provider.

Philip has a BA Honours in Economics from York University and is a qualified chartered accountant.

Simon has spent over 20 years in the property industry. For the majority of his career, he has been involved in fund management and banking. He was instrumental in the creation of the property fund management business of Charterhouse Bank (now HSBC) where he was a director and has developed and managed a range of property funds at Jones Lang LaSalle Corporate Finance and PRICOA (now Rockspring).

Simon has a Bsc (est man) from Oxford Brookes and is a member of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors.

Prior to this, he had worked in the investment management industry for over 20 years, most recently as a partner at Langholm Capital, having joined the firm as CFO at its inception in 2002.

Paul previously worked at Mercury Asset Management, joining Mercury prior to its acquisition by Merrill Lynch; in total he spent almost 6 years at Merrill Lynch Investment Managers in a variety of finance roles, both in the UK and Asia. He qualified as a chartered accountant with Coopers & Lybrand (now PwC), working primarily on the audit of investment management firms.

Paul has a degree in economics from Cambridge University.