John Campbell
Senior Partner of Campbell Lutyens & Co. Ltd.

Campbell Lutyens is an independent private equity advisory firm founded in 1988. It has offices in London and New York, with around 30 international executives, advisers and staff with global and broad-ranging expertise in the private equity sector.  Campbell Lutyens provides specialist advice to institutions, general partners, and other organizations on all aspects of the private equity industry, including emerging markets, and is a leading advisor on private equity secondary transactions.

John Campbell recently led the Campbell Lutyens team on a two-year assignment advising the British Government on the restructuring of CDC Plc, through which it held a $2 billion private equity emerging markets portfolio.  This assignment included the assessment of best private equity practice in both the emerging markets and the developing markets in order to develop a structure to optimize investment returns and attract third party capital to complement the British Government’s capital.  As a result, ACTIS, a new investment management team, was established with over US$ 5 billion equivalent under management.

Similarly, a Campbell Lutyens team jointly led by John Campbell advised the Fonds de Reserve pour les Retraites (“FRR”), the French Government’s €25 billion pension plan, on the development of an initial €1.5 billion private equity program.  This advisory role was won in open international competition.  FRR will become one of the largest European pension plans and is estimated to grow to approximately €150 billion by 2020. 

Prior to founding Campbell Lutyens, John Campbell was an executive director of Noble Grossart for 15 years, joining them in 1973 and representing the company in London from 1976 to 1987. Noble Grossart has been involved in the private equity sector as an equity manager and financial adviser since 1969.

John Campbell began his career in corporate finance and private equity advice at Rothschilds in 1969.  Between 1979 and 1982, he was chief executive officer of McLeod Russel plc, one of the UK’s largest international agribusiness groups with operations in Kenya, Zimbabwe, India, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea and Australia.  In that capacity he traveled extensively in Africa and Asia and has maintained close connections in those regions.     He has written numerous articles on private equity, and is a frequent speaker at conferences, worldwide.  He serves as a Director of the Pacific Pension Institute.