Small Cap Awards 2024: Analyst of the Year Nominees

Inaugurated in 2013, the Small Cap Awards is an annual event celebrating and rewarding the finest in the sub-£350m market cap quoted company sector.

The Awards celebrates those professionals and companies that work within the AIM and Aquis communities and is attended by listed companies, institutions, fund managers, brokers and advisors.

The 2024 Awards will take place on Thursday 13th June 2024 at One Moorgate Place in London.

The nominees for Analyst of the Year include:

Robert Sanders

Robert has worked in the City for 36 years – 16 as a fund manager, the last seven of which up to 2003 were at Smith & Williamson where he managed smaller company and technology funds. Since moving to the sell-side in 2003, he has worked as a smaller companies analyst/head of growth companies research at Arbuthnot/Westhouse/Stockdale Securities and Shore Capital from April 2019, following its takeover of Stockdale Securities.

Robert likes to get to know management teams well and fully understand the financial drivers of a company so he can communicate the investment case in a clear and concise fashion to new and existing investors. He has covered companies in many sectors and particularly likes those ones that have the potential to deliver strong secular growth through a disruptive technology and/or product.  As always, the management of expectations is almost as important as the management of the company.

Having graduated with an upper second-class honours degree in Economics and Economic History from the University of Leicester in 1987, Robert qualified in 1989 with first time passes with what is now the CFA UK.

Outside of work, Robert is married with three children which help to keep him young at heart. He has a life-long passion for sport and football, in particular, which he played up until the first lockdown. He supports Liverpool FC and has enjoyed the highs and lows that goes with being a football fan, at least there have been quite a few highs associated with Liverpool in recent years.

Katherine Thompson

Katherine is a Technology analyst covering sub-sectors including software, fintech, IT services and electronics. She joined Edison Group in 2010 where she has covered a wide range of companies from micro-cap to mid-cap across a variety of exchanges in the UK, Europe, Asia Pacific and the US.

Her focus at Edison is on helping to improve awareness and understanding of companies across all investor types globally. This includes explaining complex technologies or business models to a generalist audience and providing an objective view on companies to help investors make informed decisions.

Prior to Edison, Katherine was a semiconductor and telecom equipment analyst at Citigroup for nine years. She spent five years at PwC where she qualified as a chartered accountant. She has a degree in Electronic and Electrical Engineering from UCL.

Lala Gregorek

Lala Gregorek has broad experience as a life sciences analyst gained at Canaccord Adams and at Edison Investment Research, where she held various senior roles within the healthcare team. She has also worked in risk management at both Dresdner Kleinwort and Lehman Brothers, as a credit analyst focused on the financials sector.

She holds an MA in Biological Sciences (University of Oxford) and an MPhil in Bioscience Enterprise (University of Cambridge).

Charles Hall

Charles joined Peel Hunt as Head of Research in October 2008. His career includes nine years at Panmure Gordon as head of small & mid cap research and nine years at Cazenove. Charles read Politics and Economics at Durham University.