1993: Dream team

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Tags: BEL, business, Science, winter-2011

Mark Sowerby

Mark Sowerby, Bachelor of Agricultural Science, Master of Business Administration

By the time Mark Sowerby started his own private equity firm in 2006, the then 35-year- old had worked on five continents in some of the busiest cities in the world.

His work had taken him to places as diverse as Hong Kong, Nicaragua, China, Bangladesh, India, Mexico and parts of the United States.

However, when it came time to put together his management team, Mr Sowerby found he needed to look no further than his alma mater to find the best candidates.

Mr Sowerby is the founder and Director of Blue Sky Funds Management, which in four years has grown to a family of four companies with 18 staff, offices in Brisbane and Adelaide, and $160 million worth of funds under its management.

The firm’s success, according to Mr Sowerby, comes down to good ideas and being able to attract “some of the better intellectual property to come out of UQ” from the early 90s, including fellow graduate Rob Brooks, with whom he founded the firm.

While Mr Sowerby was studying his undergraduate degree and living at Emmanuel College, he had a healthy rivalry with St John’s College residents Tim Wilson and David Hobart.

More than a decade later, both alumni are now managing directors within the company, with Mr Hobart bringing his own award-winning hedge fund over to Blue Sky earlier this year.

Far from being a simple case of old school ties, Mr Sowerby said the pair had the exact expertise required for the company.

“Tim has worked around the world in private equity and investment banking and is probably one of the best networked guys in Brisbane. He’s a popular investment banker, which is an oxymoron if ever I heard one,” he said.

“David came along just as we were keen to branch out into a hedge fund, and he had just won the 2009 Alternative Investment Management Association Australia Best Emerging Manager Award.”

Other members of the team with UQ connections include economics/law graduate and University Medallist Alex McNab, and commerce/law graduate David Laverty, Managing Director of the company’s private real estate arm.

Team members’ CVs also list some of the world’s most prestigious business schools including London Business School, Harvard Business School and INSEAD in France.

“In our space, the premium is not on capital but on ideas, so we have sought to align ourselves with some of the leading thinkers in the field,” he said.

Mr Sowerby said the diversity of the team’s skills base and its shared global vision had been an essential component to the company’s growth.

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