Management Team

Structure

The management team of Blue Diagonal Capital sets the foundation for providing clients with risk-optimised solutions when managing their funds.

The team is led by the company's two founders: Lourens de Beer - Chief Executive Officer, and Demetrios Efstathiou - Chief Investment Officer.

The team commands an exceptional set of capabilities that includes:

  • the track-record of the founders in the financial and investment sector
     
  • complementary skills that span across multiple disciplines and business areas
     
  • an essential overlap in the knowledge and understanding of financial markets, especially of emerging and frontier markets

Management Team Profiles

Lourens de Beer - Chief Executive Officer

Lourens has over 30 years of experience working in emerging markets.

He started his career at Standard Merchant Bank in South Africa where he was responsible for derivative trading (fixed income, foreign exchange and equities).

He later worked at WestLB AG in London where he was Managing Director for Central and Eastern Europe, former CIS and Africa (including positions on the Supervisory Boards of the WestLB subsidiaries in the region).

Subsequently, Lourens moved to Ukraine where at Ukraine Securities Holdings he provided corporate finance and advisory services, including acting as advisor on several international bond issues.

Lourens is a holder of B.Ing. (Electronics) from the University of Pretoria in South Africa, a B.Com (Law) from the University of South Africa, and M.Com (Finance and Business Management) from Rand Afrikaans University in Johannesburg, South Africa. He is also holder of CySEC Advanced Certification and Global Compliance certificate in regards to the provision of investment services.
 

Demetris Efstathiou - Chief Investment Officer

Demetris has over 25 years of experience working in global financial markets with a specialisation in emerging markets and fixed income.

Before he co-founded Blue Diagonal Capital in 2016, he spent 20 years working for financial institutions in London - 15 years as a trader and portfolio manager, followed by 5 years as head of EM strategy and research. He headed Morgan Stanley's CEEMEA fixed income proprietary trading desk in London, while at RBS Global Markets he led the EM cross-asset research & strategy team covering credit, interest rates and currencies.

In addition, he has served on the board of directors of Hellenic Bank, Cyprus - a Eurozone systemic bank - as an independent, non-executive director, from 2017 to 2024.

Demetris is a holder of a B.Eng. in Electronics Engineering and Computer Science (ISE) from Imperial College London, and of an MBA from London Business School.