Pantheon infra co-head to step down from role

Pantheon’s global co-head of infrastructure Kathryn Leaf is set to step down from her role at the end of the month, with fellow co-head Andrea Echberg taking over her responsibilities and becoming the firm’s sole head of infrastructure.

Leaf, who is based in San Francisco and has been with Pantheon since joining from GIC in 2008, is stepping aside from business development duties, such as investor relations, and will focus on investment responsibilities, effective from the end of this month, but will remain as partner.

“Kathryn Leaf’s role is being adjusted to accommodate some personal needs,” a spokeswoman for Pantheon told sister publication Infrastructure Investor. “Kathryn will focus on investments, including chairing Pantheon’s global infrastructure and real assets committee and contributing to the firm’s overall investment strategy at the international investment committee, and step aside from business development. This revised remit will allow Kathryn to focus on governance, investment strategy, scrutiny and decision-making.”

The move was noted by the UK’s East Sussex Pension Fund in documents for its meeting today. East Sussex initially invested $64 million 2018 in Pantheon’s $2.2 billion Global Infrastructure Fund III before increasing this by a further $53 million last year.

“We are comfortable with this change and while significant, we do not believe it indicates that Leaf is likely to depart from the firm in the coming months,” East Sussex’s consultant Hymans Robertson noted in the documents. “We do not believe it will have a materially negative impact on Pantheon’s capabilities but will continue to monitor the team closely.”

Pantheon Global Infrastructure III closed in March 2019 and the firm targets investments across primaries, secondaries and co-investments.

This article first appeared in sister publication Infrastructure Investor