TDR Capital hires data scientists

The UK private equity firm joins a growing list of firms seeking to enhance their operations through hiring big data and technology professionals.

TDR Capital, a European private equity firm, has hired two data science professionals to analyse the firm’s investment portfolio. Eduardas Afanasjevas joined the firm as head of data science in November 2016, according to the firm’s website, along with Gregory Weegenaar, another data scientist. They joined the firm from Strategy&, a business strategy consultancy, which is part of PricewaterhouseCoopers, a global professional services firm.

The hires, which were reported by the Wall Street Journal earlier this week, are part of a trend among private equity firms to build their in-house operational tech expertise.

InvestIndustrial, a Southern Europe-focused private equity firm, hired Carlo Privitera last year to lead the group’s portfolio company digitisation efforts. Sweden-based EQT hired four technology experts last year, including a 'head of digitization', Olof Hernell from Google; a chief information officer, Petter Weiderholm from Spotify; head of engineering Daniel Wroblewski from King Digital; and head of marketing technology Sven Törnkvist, formerly of Ericsson and Google.