Nicholas Smith is the founder and director of Diversus Investment Advisers Pty Limited. He oversees the operation of Diversus and is based in Sydney focusing on the institutional investor market in Australia & New Zealand. He also provides coverage on Asia and the Gulf region. He represents investment managers in alternative asset classes – hedge funds, private equities and real estate, as well as traditional asset classes.

Prior to launching Diversus, Mr. Smith had over fifteen years of professional experience in institutional marketing and distribution. He was the managing director – Australia & New Zealand and the head of marketing – Asia Pacific with AXA Rosenberg Investment Management, where he was responsible for marketing across the Asia Pacific. At AXA Rosenberg he was based in Sydney and Singapore. Previously, he worked with Crosby Asset Management in Hong Kong and London and Manulife Financial in Hong Kong, Toronto and Vancouver.

He received his BA in economics and political science from the University of Western Ontario in Canada and is a Fellow of the Life Management Institute (FLMI), Atlanta, the United States.

Vincent Pun is the principal of Diversus Investment Advisers Asia Limited. He is responsible for Diversus’ Hong Kong office and is focusing on fund origination, screening, due diligence as well as institutional investor and manager research across the Asia Pacific region, with coverage on the Gulf, Europe and North America.

Prior to joining Diversus, Mr. Pun had almost nine years of professional experience in the alternative investment sector with primary focuses on private equity, venture capital, real estate and infrastructure. He was most recently the senior research manager of the Asian Venture Capital Journal (AVCJ Group), where he headed the AVCJ Research division to conduct private equity and mergers & acquisitions research in Asia as well as advising global general partners, limited partners and institutional investors in the areas of fund-raising, market entry, sector analysis and manager selection.

Vincent is regarded as one of the earliest and most experienced Asian private equity researchers and is featured in numerous private equity conferences, press releases, industry reports and publications.

He received his BBA (Hons) in finance and minor in accountancy from Hong Kong.