James Murphy is a Partner of Next Capital. Based in Sydney Australia, Next Capital is a leading independent Australian private equity firm investing in growth-focused Australasian companies. Next Capital is the major shareholder of Scentia, which is the holding company for the Australian Institute of Management (AIM) and the Australasian College of Health & Wellness (ACHW).
Mr Murphy has substantial experience as a director and chairman, with current or historical roles across businesses including Alloggio (tourism), Country Care (assisted technology distribution), Jucy (tourism), Eptec (asset remediation), Interhealthcare (allied health), NZ Bus (public transport), Iseek (data centres), Funlab (out of home entertainment), Lynch Flowers (flower distribution), Forest Coach Lines (public transport), Infinite Aged Care (residential aged care), Scottish Pacific (financial services) and GoBus (public transportation).
Prior to his time at Next Capital, Mr Murphy worked in corporate finance at UBS and Grant Samuel, and was a strategy consultant at Accenture.
James holds a Bachelor of Commerce degree from the University of New South Wales.
Bing Jiang is a Partner at Next Capital. Based in Sydney Australia, Next Capital is a leading independent Australian private equity firm investing in growth-focused Australasian companies.
Bing has substantial experience as a director, with current or historical roles across businesses including as a chair of Enviropacific (environment remediation), Alloggio (tourism), and Funlab (out of home entertainment).
Prior to Next Capital, Bing worked in the M&A team at Morgan Stanley in Hong Kong, executing numerous M&A and IPO transactions involving private equity firms, sovereign wealth funds, and banks.
Bing has a Bachelor of Commerce, and a Bachelor of Laws (Hons) from the University of Queensland.
Mark is the Managing Director of the Silverfern Group.
Mark brings over 25 years of private equity and international banking experience to Scentia. He has extensive experience in the acquisition, integration, and expansion of businesses as well as providing strategic direction to company boards and management teams.
Based in Sydney, Australia, Mark has successfully invested in numerous businesses and industries including defense, healthcare, engineering services, consumer goods, logistics, warehousing, waste management, tourism, telecommunications, and media.
Prior to Silverfern, Mark was a Partner with ABN AMRO Capital Management Australia and Director with ABN AMRO Capital Amsterdam, a private equity fund, where he was involved in private equity, private debt, and venture capital transactions in Europe, the United States, and South Africa.
Mark holds a Bachelor's degree in Economics from Monash University in Melbourne and is a Fellow of the Australian Institute of Company Directors.
Arvid Petersen is Chairman of Petersen Group. Based in Sydney Australia, Petersen Group is a diversified investment company focussing on private equity, private debt, global equities, property and other family office related entities. Their private equity investments are primarily in private education and hospitality.
Mr Petersen has had a long and successful history in private education with his first investment in 1994. A founding shareholder of Study Group Australia, Mr Petersen led the growth of the company prior to selling to Daily Mail and General Trust (DMGT) in 2003.
In 2006 Mr Petersen partnered with CHAMP private equity to buy the global operations of Study Group. After growing the business significantly over the ensuing five years, the company was then sold to Providence Equity Partners in 2010. Mr Petersen remained on the board and retained a significant shareholding until the company was sold to Ardian in 2019.
Prior to his involvement in private education, Mr Petersen spent many years in the soft drink industry with Pepsi Cola, coming to Australia from Canada in 1989 to establish Pepsi Cola Bottlers Australia, where he was the founding Managing Director.
Mr Petersen serves on the boards of Scentia Education and the Petersen Family Foundation.
For the decade up to 2020, Martin was the CEO and MD of two high-growth businesses. More recently, he was the CEO of a start-up disrupting the legal practice management industry. He has successfully led a disruptive challenger brand during its scale-up phase, an incumbent internet services business through a turnaround and ultimate transformation into a leading digital services business, and a start-up taking an innovative SaaS platform to market.
In addition to a dozen years of CEO experience, Martin has enjoyed senior leadership roles in functional areas including sales, marketing, product management, channel management, business development, and strategy and planning. This experience was acquired in both B2B and B2C contexts.
Martin is responsible for the performance of Scentia and its operating businesses.
Andrew is the CEO and Founder of Roland Investments, an investment and consulting company specialising in the for-profit education sector, financial management and driving growth in SMEs.
Prior to founding Roland Investments, Andrew was the longest serving executive director at global education provider, Study Group. Over a period of 17 years, as part of the executive management team, Andrew was instrumental in the growth of the business from a UK one-school, 80-student start-up college to a leading global education group. During this time, he lived in the UK, USA and Australia.
Prior to his time at Study Group, Andrew was involved with a number of multinational companies within the healthcare, automotive and financial services sectors.
Andrew is currently a Non Executive Director of Endeavour College of Natural Therapies.
Andrew is a Fellow of the Chartered Association of Certified Accountants and a Graduate of the Australian Institute of Directors.
