The Team

George C. Zois

Managing Director, Founder & CEO. George began his career as a fixed income analyst at Goldman Sachs. He acquired further global corporate transaction deal experience through PWC and Accenture before moving to Fox Pitt Kelton as a European financials’ analyst. From 2012 to 2016, George worked on the EM Sales & Trading – Debt Capital Markets desk at EXOTIX Partners, where he led and helped build out coverage across equities, sovereign, and corporate fixed income, and the NPL space centred primarily around the Greek debt crisis. More recently, George was head of a Geneva-based family office in Mayfair, London where he led sales & trading and provided investment and capital markets advice and analysis for internal sovereign and distressed funds as well as for LPs in the EM, distressed, HY fixed income, loans & claims, and receivables universe. In 2021, he founded Lantana Capital. George is a qualified Chartered Accountant and Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales.

Colin Chapman

Managing Director, COO & Compliance  Officer. Colin spent the first decade of his career in operational roles, project management, and system design at BAML, Deutsche Bank, and VTB in London. He moved to Moscow in 2008  and worked in fixed income sales and DCM at Metropol Finance before becoming head of European fixed income sales at Sberbank of Russia. Other roles included building out CIS fixed income sales and trading operations at BCS and Norvik Banka across Moscow, Riga, and London. More recently, Colin set up a Swiss Asset Managers London office infrastructure as chief operating officer. In 2021, he co-founded Lantana Capital, acting as its Chief Compliance & Operating Officer. Colin holds a BA (Hons) in History from King’s College London.

Christopher Powell

Head of Loans, Claims & Sourcing. Chris spent more than 10 years at Morgan Grenfell, mainly in the Emerging Market International Loans Department covering LATAM and Asia. From merchant banking, Chris moved to London  Forfaiting where he spent more than a decade in various roles leading and covering a large variety of trade finance transactions across markets and through a number of global financial crises. Chris joined EXOTIX Partners, a specialist EM investment banking boutique, in 2003, where he led the loans and claims trading business, sourcing and placing  transactions as diverse as Icelandic and Ukrainian assets. More recently, Chris was at a Swiss Asset Manager, responsible for sourcing loans & claims and concluding trade finance transactions across emerging and other markets. He joined the newly established Lantana team in 2021, as a senior partner.

Charles Davies

Managing Director, Deal Execution & Investment Committee. Charles has spent over 30 years in investment banking, working predominantly on the institutional sales side, focusing on credit, rates, equities, and derivatives at Schroders, Société General, Daiwa and Investec. Over the last ten years, he has specialised in emerging and frontier market credit, distressed debt and special situations sales and trading at EXOTIX Partners, Oppenheimer and Cambridge International. He also has extensive experience in sourcing and capital raising for private debt and equity including fundraising for hedge funds. Charles attended Gordonstoun School followed by a period in the Grenadier Guards. He is a graduate of Reading University and recently completed the Fintech programme at the Said Business School at Oxford University.

Ayomi Gunawardhana

Head of Private Wealth & Family Offices. Ayomi began her career in 2001 at Bridport & Cie in Geneva as a Fixed Income trader covering Swiss and European institutional clients and followed by roles at Banque Safdie and Hyposwiss Private Bank trading Fixed Income, Equities, Derivatives and FX with a core focus in Emerging Markets (EM) and High Yield (HY). Ayomi was also in charge of the Fixed Income and rates strategy and worked with relationship managers in an advisory capacity, selecting investments and constructing portfolios for UHWN clients. Ayomi further set up the sales and trading desk for Greenwich Dealing covering asset management firms, hedge funds, and UHNWs and focused on developing existing and new client business and advisory. Ayomi studied International relations at The Graduate Institute/ University of Geneva.

George Douvros

Head of Shipping & Energy, Physical Commodities Trading & Alternative Assets. George brings a wealth of experience from a career covering capital markets, investment banking, shipping, aviation, energy, infrastructure & logistics and real estate. He has also built-up strong expertise as a serial entrepreneur within the marine transportation industry as a ship owner, operator, manager, broker and financier. Core skills include originating, structuring & executing global transactions including IPOs and SPOs in the USA, EU and the UK, private equity & debt placements with further expertise in M&A, restructuring and physical commodities trading. George is also an Angel Investor working with Marine Transportation & Logistics start-ups focusing on, innovation, digital transformation, IoT, AI & green technologies. George holds an MBA in Finance from Butler University and a BSc in Business Administration & Finance from the University of Indianapolis.

David Kanto

US Advisory & Board Member. David has 25 years of experience in financial markets. He was previously Global Head of Sales of the Nasdaq Private Fund Solutions group for the hedge fund and private equity data and analytics business. David has held senior sales and management roles at some of the top technology and financial firms including Cisco Systems, Nokia Ventures Organization, and FIS Private Markets and is currently the Director of Strategic Accounts at Alkymi, an AI fintech based in New York City. David is a graduate of the University of Iowa where he received his BA in European History & Economics.