Adrian Beecroft

Paul Adrian Barlow Beecroft (born 20 May 1947 ) is a British venture capitalist based in London. He was for many years Chief Investment Officer of the private equity group Apax. He was until recently Chairman of Dawn Capital.

Among the companies in which Beecroft has personally invested are Mimecast and Insignis.

Beecroft has donated more than £500,000 to the Conservative Party since 2006.

Early life and education Adrian Beecroft was born and raised in Yorkshire. He studied at Hymers College in Hull.

He graduated from Queen's College, Oxford with a first class honours degree in Physics in 1968 and is now an Honorary Fellow of the College. In 1976, he gained an MBA from Harvard Business School, where he studied as a Harkness Fellow.

Beecroft started his career at ICL, in the computer industry. At that time, NESTA was still a QUANGO.

Beecroft was awarded the BVCA's Hall of Fame honour at the Private Equity Awards in 2009.

In 2010, Beecroft joined Dawn Capital as the Chairman of their board. It was alleged that significant sections of the report had been doctored. It was also reported that some recommendations had been removed from the original draft of the report. Beecroft responded by accusing Cable of being a socialist. He referenced his own experience of having to pay £150,000 for unfairly dismissing an HR employee as one of the many reasons behind the recommendation in the report.

Philanthropy

Beecroft helped to found and funds the Beecroft Institute of Particle Physics and Cosmology (BIPAC) He has also part-funded the Beecroft Building, part of the Department of Physics in Oxford. This new building is specifically focused on theoretical, condensed matter and quantum physics. According to The Daily Telegraph, the funding for this building was inspired by Beecroft's interest in astrophysics.

Through the Beecroft Trust, Adrian and his wife sponsor the Oxford Academy, an Academy school serving a very deprived area of Oxford. Since becoming an Academy school in 2010, its results have improved dramatically from 14% of the students achieving five A* to C grades including English and Maths to 56% achieving this in 2017. However, in 2019, only 17% of pupils achieved grade 5 or above at GCSE and the school had the worst Attainment 8 and Progress 8 scores of any mainstream school in Oxfordshire. In December 2019, the Head and governing body were removed after an OFSTED inspection.

Beecroft has also supported the UNESCO initiative to preserve the Belize Barrier Reef Reserve System, which was classified as in danger on the UNESCO List of World Heritage in Danger in 2009. As of June 2018, the World Heritage Committee decided to remove the Belize Barrier Reef, which is the world's second largest coral reef, from the list.

Personal life

Beecroft lives in London and supports Lord's Cricket Ground as a Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) Trustee. As a trustee one of his core roles is assisting with the appointment of the Chairman, but also overseeing the wellbeing of the club and cricket ground. His enthusiasm for the sport came from watching the Yorkshire County team play in Hull.

Beecroft is a supporter of the North Yorkshire Moors Railway of which he is a Vice-President. He is a keen auto-enthusiast, having an extensive collection of vehicles, including several Aston Martins, most notably a DBR1 which he races at a number of motoring events and later crashed in 2015. He is a governor of Hymers College in Hull.