For the past 10 years, Candesic has ranked amongst
the best European consulting firms by Vault

In the last 3 years, Candesic worked on
over £7bn worth of transactions.

Over the last 3 years, Candesic has won multiple awards
from Real Deals, HealthInvestor, L&B and has been recognised
as a top management consultancy by The FT.

For 19 years, Candesic has topped the Mergermarket
League Tables for healthcare consulting

Senior Team
Dr Leonid Shapiro

Dr Leonid ShapiroManaging Partner & Founder

Leonid is a medical doctor, entrepreneur and management consultant and oversees Candesic's corporate and commercial due diligence work.

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He consults Private Equity firms, Corporate Operators, and Government Organisations in the areas of healthcare, technology, and communications focusing on strategy, marketing, and organization. Prior to founding Candesic, Leonid was a senior consultant at McKinsey & Company, London, working heavily in healthcare and technology. He has also consulted to Hewlett-Packard in medical imaging product development. Leonid’s entrepreneurial ventures include being COO of a $126m software company and CEO of a telecommunications firm. He holds a D.Phil. from Magdalen College, Oxford in Radiological Imaging, a MD from Duke University in North Carolina, an undergraduate degree in Physics from Cornell University and is fluent in Russian and English.

Marc Kitten

Marc KittenPartner

Marc has 25 years of experience of transactions and financial markets.

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He serves private equity funds, financial institutions and corporates and manages Candesic operations in continental Europe. Marc is a member of the boards of several high growth companies in EMEA. He is also an adjunct professor of finance at Imperial College London and a senior lecturer in strategy and finance at Edhec, ESCP-Europe, ENPC Paristech and Cass Business School. Prior to joining Candesic, Marc was a senior consultant at McKinsey & Co. and a Vice-President at Deutsche Bank in Europe. He holds an MBA from Chicago Booth, completed the Young Managers Programme at INSEAD and graduated from Edhec Business School in France. Marc speaks fluent French, English and German, conversational Spanish and Russian, and basic Mandarin.

Dr Michelle Tempest

Dr Michelle TempestPartner

Dr Michelle Tempest MA LLM MB BChir (Cantab) ACAT has expertise in medicine, psychiatry, psychotherapy, business, law and politics.

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She has been a Partner at Candesic since 2013 and has led multiple projects reviewing market opportunities for investors, public and private providers to develop beneficial partnerships. She has delivered projects for NHS Trusts (acute, community and mental health), Private Hospitals, Specialist Hospitals, Private Patient Units (PPUs), Community Providers, Care Home and Care at Home. In 2006 she edited the book 'The Future of the NHS' and more recently has delivered strategy projects for the UK government on ‘new ways of working’. She has an expert interest in medical technology companies, and has worked with several MedTech companies on expansion plans and advised throughout the entire life cycle of deals. Previously Michelle worked as a hospital doctor and liaison psychiatrist for over a decade, and continues to lecture in 'medical ethics and law' at Cambridge University.

Antoine Gelain

Antoine GelainPractice Leader, ASD & Security

Antoine is a specialist in corporate strategy and an expert in aerospace, defence and security, with more than twenty years of industry experience.

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After starting his career as a financial analyst for Indosuez Bank in South Korea, he worked for two leading European aerospace & defence companies (now part of EADS) in commercial management and business development roles in the Asia-Pacific region. He later joined Booz Allen & Hamilton (now Booz & co.) in London, where he advised multiple international companies and governments on strategic issues before founding his own strategy and business consulting company Octagon Partners in 2004, specialized in the aerospace, defence and security industry. In 2011, Octagon Partners merged with Candesic and became its aerospace, defence and security practice. Antoine graduated from ESSEC business school in France and holds a MBA from Harvard Business School.



Senior Advisors

Michael J Smith

Michael has a long career history in health and social care in the private and public sectors. After Managing Director of BUPA he has been Chairman of two NHS Trusts and of private hospital, care homes, clinical trials and diagnostics companies. He has been Senior Adviser to a global consulting firm and is currently a Governor and Trustee of two major Charities, Nuffield Health and St Bartholomew’s / The London Hospital Charity. He attended Imperial College and Harvard Business School.

John de Zulueta

John was Chairman of the Sanitas Group (BUPA) from 2005 to 2009 and USP Hospitales from 2010 to 2012. He is Chairman of the Advisory Board of the Universidad Europea (Laureate Group) and of the Healthcare Committee of the Círculo de Empresarios (Business Circle). He is also a Board Director of Bankinter since 2001, a member or the Board of the Spanish Institute of Directors, Vice-chairman of the Bankinter Innovation Foundation and Chairman of the Exit Foundation (Spain). He was previously a consultant with The Boston Consulting Group in San Francisco and CEO of the Sanitas Group for 14 years. He has also served on the Advisory Board of 3i Europe and at the Special Commission to Study the Development of the Information Society in Spain sponsored by the Ministry of Science and Technology. He was awarded the Grand Cross of the Order of Civil Merit by H.M. the King of Spain. John holds a B.A. in History from Stanford and an MBA from Columbia.

Norman Bernard

Norman has 25 years experience of advising financial institutions worldwide. In 2005 Euromoney nominated him as one of the world's leading advisors to financial institutions. As a consultant, he has advised investment, commercial and retail banks as well as insurance underwriters and brokers in areas of strategy, organisation and operations. He has also run a Lloyds' broker owned by Citibank and prior to that, a division of the investment bank at Grindlays Bank. Norman is a founding partner of First Consulting and a former partner at Booz Allen Hamilton, in charge of its European financial services practice. He started his consulting career with McKinsey & Company in London.

Claire Gouzouli

Claire has 20 years experience in strategy consulting. She holds masters degrees with distinction in both mechanical engineering and economics. Claire also holds an MBA from INSEAD, where she currently serves on the board. She is an advisor to the board at one of the leading shipping companies in Greece and chairman and a founding shareholder at VWater, a functional mineral water company in the UK. Claire started her career consulting with BCG in Munich, later worked for Booz.Allen & Hamilton in Paris and London consulting with banks, insurers, travel, advertising and marketing companies and then helped found First Consulting.

Prof Stephen Smith

Stephen is currently a non-executive director of Great Ormond Street Children’s Hospital and has held senior leadership roles in the NHS and academia. He has had a long and distinguished career as a clinician scientist, Head of Department, Dean and CEO with the Medical Research Council, University of Cambridge, Imperial College, London and Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust. He was responsible for the largest merger in the NHS, the creation of Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, where Stephen served for four years as the first CEO. He also retained his position as Dean of the Faculty of Medicine at Imperial College, London and was responsible for facilitating the commercialisation of life sciences and healthcare. Stephen has extensive non- executive experience serving on the Boards of the National Healthcare Group Singapore, which developed integrated care through nine polyclinics. In Australia, he was on the Board of the Royal Melbourne Hospital and the Victorian Comprehensive Cancer Centre, a $1billion project to create a fully integrated cancer care facility. Stephen is a professor (FRCOG) of obstetrics and gynecology with medical degrees from Imperial College London.

Jean-Matthieu Cottin

Jean-Matthieu is a healthcare expert and a senior executive with over 15 years in C-level positions. He is the previous CEO of Groupe Sinoue, an 800-employee private healthcare group operating Psychiatric Hospitals in France and the UK. He was previously CFO of Bioquanta corp, Nutricia France and Lilly Vostok in Moscow.
Jean-Matthieu is an advisory board member of Sentimoto and other startups. He holds an MBA from Oxford Said and graduated from ESCP Europe. He speaks fluent French, English and German.