Des is a seasoned investor with experience across a number of investment classes and jurisdictions.
He began his career as an engineer, but after 10 years and obtaining an MBA at INSEAD, he joined
the International Finance Corporation (IFC) in 1999 as an Investment Officer; where he focused on
investments in East Asia.

In 2005, Des joined Deutsche Asset Management (DeAM) in Singapore to set up an alternative asset
group, Complex Asset Group (CAG) which focused on investing in Vietnam as well as the agriculture
and wine sectors. During his time there, the group raised and invested over US$700 million.

Later in 2009, the CAG ‘spun’ out of DeAM to form Duxton Asset Management – with Des as the
Managing Director and CIO. Duxton Asset Management managed the legacy assets of the CAG and
added several additional mandates, in addition to expanding in both Australia and Germany. In 2019,
Des decided to step down from an executive role within Duxton group. Although he remains a
director of a number of Duxton-invested companies, he is currently focused on mentoring a number
of early stage companies in the human capital, MedTech, machine learning and education sectors.