Board of Directors

  • view/hide bio Dean Dakolias

    Director

    Mr. Dakolias is a Managing Partner of the Fortress Credit Funds Business. Mr. Dakolias also serves on Fortress’s Management and Operating Committees. Prior to joining Fortress in 2001, Mr. Dakolias was a Managing Director, Chief Credit Officer and co-founder of American Commercial Capital LLC (a specialty finance company) and Coronado Advisors (an SEC registered broker dealer), both of which were sold to Wells Fargo & Co. in 2001. Mr. Dakolias was previously a director at RER Financial Group where he was responsible for the firm's acquisition efforts as a principal and as a provider of third party due diligence and asset management. Mr. Dakolias serves on the Board of Trustees for Columbia University, the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, the Millbrook School and Endeavor Greece. Mr. Dakolias is also a co-founder of The Hellenic Initiative, as well as a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Mr. Dakolias received a B.S. in Physics from Columbia University.

  • view/hide bio Jason Sherwill

    Director

    Jason Sherwill is ICAEW qualified in England and Wales, having trained in Guernsey with Peat Marwick Mitchell (which subsequently became KPMG), qualifying in 1980. Following qualification, he transferred to KPMG in Western Australia, spending four years in the audit division, the final two years as manager, before returning to Guernsey in early 1986. A transfer in 1988 to the expanding fiduciary division of KPMG Channel Islands then followed, and he became a partner of the Channel Islands firm in October 1990 as well as director of Orbis Management Limited, the entity under which the fiduciary division traded. This continued until September 2000 when Orbis Management Limited was acquired by Dresdner Bank/Kleinwort Benson. Following four years with Kleinwort Benson, in August 2004 he established the Guernsey office of Fauchier Partners, a London based fund of hedge funds manager/adviser for high net worth and institutional clients, and which had been a client of Orbis Management since 1995. In January 2005 he was appointed as CFO to the Fauchier Partners group in addition to having overall responsibility for managing the Guernsey office. In 2008 he decided to leave full-time employment, but continued in a non-executive directorship role with Fauchier Partners until March 2014. He is a director of a number of open-ended investment funds in addition to the directorship of Eurocastle.

  • view/hide bio Peter M. Smith

    Director

    Peter M. Smith is a member of Eurocastle’s board of directors. Mr. Smith is a managing director in the Private Equity business at Fortress Investment Group LLC and is also a member of the firm’s Management Committee. Mr. Smith joined Fortress in May 1998, prior to which he worked at UBS and, before that, at BlackRock Financial Management Inc. from 1996 to 1998. Mr. Smith worked at CRIIMI MAE Inc. from 1991 to 1996. Mr. Smith received a BBA in Finance from Radford University and a MBA in Finance from George Washington University.

  • view/hide bio Dr. Simon J. Thornton

    Director

    Dr. Simon J. Thornton is a member of Eurocastle's board of directors. Dr. Thornton is the Chief Executive Officer of the PraxisIFM Group, one of the largest independently owned financial services groups based in the Channel Islands. Dr. Thornton joined the PraxisIFM Group in 1992 and is a qualified chartered accountant. He was on the management board of PKF (Guernsey) Ltd until 2014, where he also served as an audit director. Additionally, he is the director of a number of investment companies including several Guernsey trading companies. Prior to joining Praxis Group, he obtained a PhD at Nottingham University.

  • view/hide bio Claire Whittet

    Director

    Mrs Whittet has over 45 years experience in the financial services industry. After obtaining a MA (Hons) in Geography from the University of Edinburgh, she joined the Bank of Scotland for 19 years and undertook a wide variety of lending and corporate roles. She moved to Guernsey in 1996 and was Global Head of Private Client Credit for Bank of Bermuda before joining Rothschild & Co Bank International Limited, initially as Director pf Lending and laterally as Managing Director and Co-Head until she became a Non-Executive Director on her retirement in 2016. Mrs Whittet is an experienced Non-Executive Director and currently sits on 5 Listed Boards, one of which she chairs and two of which she is Senior Independent Director. She is also a Non-Executive Director for a number of Private Equity entities. Mrs. Whittet is an ACIB member of the Chartered Institute of Bankers in Scotland, a member of the Chartered Insurance Institute and holds an IoD Diploma in Company Direction. Mrs Whittet is a Guernsey resident.