Who We Are

Peter Van Dessel

Chief Investment Officer and Founding Member

Peter Van Dessel is an investment management professional and fund manager with over 30 years of experience in fund management, alternative investments, debt and capital markets, investment banking and pension fund consulting. 

He served as Chairman of the Bosera China Fund Limited and as a member of the Board of Trustees of the Electricity Supply Board of Ireland’s Pension Fund, one of Ireland’s largest pension plans. 

Before that, Peter was Head of Trading at BNP Paribas's Dublin office, Chief Executive of WestLB Covered Bond Bank, and Chief Operating Officer of Abbey Capital Limited, a large fund of managed futures funds based out of Dublin and New York. 

Grace Y. Toh

Founding Member and Managing Director

Grace Y. Toh is a financial services professional with over 30 years of experience in private banking and wealth management, concentrating on building and managing long-term relationships with high net worth clients. Previously, she was a Senior Vice President at HSBC Private Bank and The Private Bank at Bank of America (now US Trust). 

She is a graduate of Wellesley College with a B.A. in Economics and Chinese Studies. She studied Management Information Systems and Accounting at MIT’s Sloan School of Management and earned her MBA in Finance from the Jones School of Management at Rice University. She has served on a number of not-for-profit boards and is a member of Wellesley College’s Board of Trustees. 

Joe Connolly

Managing Director

Joe Connolly brings with him over 35 years of experience in financial services, working exclusively in sales, business development and relationship management roles. 

Born and educated in Ireland, Joe held a number of senior positions with the Bank of Ireland in Dublin before relocating to the U.S. in 2003 as Head of U.S. Sales. 

For the past 15 years, Joe was directly involved in the Bank’s significant growth in the U.S., serving on the U.S. senior management team and was a member of the Ireland-U.S. Council. In this role, he was twice nominated on the Wall Street’s Top 50 Irish Americans