The people behind Herminius

Jack is the former Chief Executive Officer of AXIS Insurance and former Chief Operations Officer of Axis Capital Holdings, the global insurer and reinsurer with c.$5bn revenues and total assets in excess of $20bn.

Jack has nearly thirty years’ experience in the insurance industry. He served as an underwriter at Charman Underwriting Agencies from 1989 until 1998, when ACE Limited acquired it.

At ACE, Jack served as Deputy Underwriter of Syndicates 488/2488, Director of ACE Global Markets Underwriting Limited, Director of Marine and Specialty Lines for Syndicate 2488 and a member of ACE Global Markets Executive Underwriting Committee.  In February 2001, Jack was appointed Joint Active Underwriter of Syndicate 2488 and director of the ACE Agency Board, where he served until joining AXIS in 2002.

Jack had management responsibility for AXIS Capital’s international insurance operations from 2002 and all insurance operations from 2007 onwards.

After reading History at Magdalene College, Cambridge Dominic joined Robert Fleming, the London-based merchant bank.  After six years in investment banking in London he was posted to Jardine Fleming in Asia and ran the number-one rated research team for Jardine Fleming Malaysia. After eleven years with Flemings Dominic became Managing Director of ABN Amro Asian Securities in Singapore.

In 2002 Dominic became one of the four founders of Aegis Defence Services in London—an innovative and ground-breaking services business offering geopolitical intelligence, advisory work and security services to a wide range of corporations and governments. Dominic was head of the Aegis Intelligence Advisory business.  By the time Aegis was accquired in 2015 revenues had reached in excess of $400 million.

In 2016 Dominic led the buy out of the Aegis Intelligence business from its new owner and rebranded it Herminius.  Dominic is also the co-founder of The Horatius Fund—a geopolitical credit fund seeking to enhance investor returns through application of a deep understanding of political risk to identify mispriced credit.

Educated at Cambridge (MA Law), Nick is a former diplomat.  He has worked in the business advisory sector since 2011. During his 29-year career with the UK Foreign Office, he served in Malaysia, Mozambique, Colombia, Syria and Iraq.

His posts at home and overseas covered a range of thematic issues, including conflict resolution, counter-terrorism and the multi-agency collaboration in the fight against serious crime.

At Herminius Nick specialises in supporting and advising clients on issues with an emerging market focus.

Julius is Managing Partner of Herminius, where in addition to managing the firm, he specialises in supporting private equity firms and multinational corporations in M&A and human capital-related advisory work.

Before helping found the company, he spent ten years as a foreign correspondent and investigative journalist, reporting from the Middle East, South Asia, Southeast Asia, and sub-Saharan Africa for Time magazine, the Economist, and the Independent.

Julius has also worked as an external advisor to the United Nations Development Programme and the Asian Development Bank, and has an MSc in the political economy of emerging markets.

He began his career writing about competition law and antitrust, with research cited in British parliamentary debate.

Zara has a Bachelor of Science degree in Management and is a chartered accountant with over 20 years’ experience in finance, after training and qualifying with Baker Tilly, a top 10 UK firm of auditors.  Zara remained in practice for 7 years managing her own team of auditors and portfolio of clients in a variety of sectors.

Her first role in industry was with Hanover Aviation, a UK air freight broker who specialised in humanitarian aid and worked closely with the Red Cross, DFID and government agencies. Within this role Zara spent time travelling to countries affected by war and natural disasters and had experience first hand of the aid work carried out.

Zara brings a breadth of experience working as a finance director within a variety of sectors including charities, hospitality, air freight, property and taxation.

Graham has worked in the strategic advisory industry since 2003 and co-founded Herminius through a management buy-out in 2016. He works closely with blue-chip clients in an advisory role, and has led over 200 projects in the Middle East, Africa, Asia (China and South East Asia), Latin America, the Former Soviet Union and Europe.

His work helps support sound, well informed decision-making in complex and often opaque environments.

Graham’s client portfolio is wide-ranging, including private equity, law, private banking & wealth management, retail, oil and gas and infrastructure.  He has a growing practice advising clients in complex shareholder disputes, delivering optimal exit strategies and, where necessary, providing litigation support.

Peter Wilson is a Partner at Herminius, where in addition to leading the firm’s Middle East work, he specialises in corporate advisory work, geopolitical risk and impact investing, particularly in emerging markets and developing and post-conflict countries.

Peter co-founded and built Libra Advisory Group, which worked on economic development, national security and post-conflict governance and reform in a wide variety of countries including Afghanistan, Bosnia, Ethiopia, Iraq, Kosovo, Sierra Leone and Sri Lanka.  Libra grew rapidly, and was successfully sold to Coffey International in 2010.

Peter went on to direct all of Coffey’s economic development and government reform programmes on behalf of European development donors, with full financial and managerial responsibility for the company’s operations and growth.  He is a former Senior Advisor and Deployable Civilian Expert at the UK Government’s joint FCO-MOD-DFID Stabilisation Unit.

Peter’s early career was spent in HM Diplomatic Service and McKinsey. He holds an MPhil in Economics, specialising in the economics of emerging markets, from the University of Oxford, and an MBA with Distinction from INSEAD in France.  He is the co-author of ‘Make Poverty Business’, which makes a profit-maximising case for greater private sector engagement in developing countries.

Andrea is a Director at Herminius, where he focuses on business development and customer engagement.  His client work includes market entry advisory, and geopolitical and reputational risk in emerging markets.

Andrea began his career with JP Morgan Private Bank in Geneva and the Swiss Government.  More recently he was worked in the M&A department of Compagnie d’Investissements et de Gestion Privée (CIGP) in Hong Kong.

Paul is Head of Herminius Japan. Following his MSc from the LSE, he joined the UK government’s HM Treasury where he worked on international economic policy advice. Paul was the first Treasury official to be posted on a two-year secondment to the Japanese Ministry of Finance. Later, he transferred to the Foreign Office where he worked on national security issues.

Leaving government in 2012, Paul then worked for Hakluyt & Company for over 11 years where he advised a range of corporate, private equity, and financial investor clients on issues including M&A, competitive dynamics, and dispute resolution. That period included working in Hakluyt’s office in Japan for 5 years. Paul joined Herminius in 2024.

Anna is the Marketing Director for Herminius.  She has an MBA from Henley Management College and is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Marketing.  She has over 20 years’ experience leading cross-border marketing for consultancy firms, and has led marketing teams, developed strategic marketing plans, created compelling brand propositions and generated strong marcomms for a number of industry-leading firms.

After originally working for the specialist publisher Blackwell Medical Publishers, she went on to work for Barclays Bank and Reuters, with responsibility for marketing and internal communications.  Between 2002 and 2007 Anna served as Head of Marketing at first Carillion and then MITIE Group. She then held a series of senior marketing roles at KPMG, including Head of Internal Communications and Head of Cross-selling Marketing.

Helena is a founding member of Herminius and instrumental in the design and implementation of our financial processes and systems.  Helena manages all aspects of finance, compliance, HR, insurance, travel and office administration for Herminius.

With 10 years’ experience as the Finance Manager at Aegis Defence Services, a period in which Aegis transitioned from a small business to a global leader, Helena brings experience and professionalism and is an extremely trusted member of the team.

Dominick has spent 25 years helping corporations, governments, the media and multinational organisations understand the implications of global and regional developments.

This has included being the principal advisor to the Joint War risks Committee of the Lloyds insurance market for over a decade; advising financial institutions on how to anticipate future events, and how markets will respond to them; helping to devise Afghanistan economic reconstruction strategy for the US Department of Defense; and working on social rehabilitation of former combatants in Sierra Leone, Mozambique and the DRC, for the UN.

Dominick has a Modern History MA from Magdalen College Oxford and a War Studies PhD from King’s College London, and his analysis has appeared in publications ranging from UN Security Council resolutions to The Times.

Bryan is the US practice lead for Herminius, where he focuses on providing corporate, investor and law firm clients with critical insights and due diligence to inform risk, investment, and organisational growth decisions.

Bryan previously served as Acting Chief Financial Officer for the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), an independent US foreign aid agency that is helping lead the fight against global poverty.  Prior to joining MCC, Bryan was Director of Special Projects at AECOM, a Fortune 200 firm of 80,000 employees operating in over 150 countries.

Bryan spent the first 13 years of his career with the US government, working across the Intelligence Community and Department of Defense.

Steve works with clients to help them understand and manage cyber-related risks within their own operations, and to conduct enhanced due diligence on cyber-related investments and business partnerships.

Steve has a long track record of service in the Canadian and British Governments, followed by senior private sector roles.  His experience includes working as Technical Director for Cyber at the UK’s Government Communication Headquarters (GCHQ), where he was responsible for the oversight and strategic direction of a £125m per year development programme, and as VP and CTO for L3’s Intelligence and Mission Systems Sector, including responsibility for leading a $225m acquisition of a cyber security business.

A Senior Advisor to Herminius, Pete is a former senior naval officer and UK Ministry of Defence official specialising in operations and geostrategy. Most recently he led the production of the MoD’s Global Strategic Trends edition 7, which lays out the factors that will shape the world and inform UK (and multinational partners) geostrategic choices in the coming years.

He led or participated in the military contribution to the security of the London 2012 Olympic Games, operations in the Indo-Pacific with NATO, and other threat responses in the Euro-Atlantic, Africa and the Middle East. He has also served as Chief of Staff to the European Union’s counter-piracy mission, working closely with the shipping industry.

A graduate of Cambridge University, Pete is an alumnus of the Higher Command and Staff Course and Royal College of Defence Studies.

James joined Herminius in 2022. He began his career working for Janus Henderson Investors before moving into politics, where he most recently worked as William Hague’s Policy Adviser.

During his five years in Westminster, James also was a Political Adviser to the Conservative Party, worked on the 2019 General Election, and formed part of Rishi Sunak’s leadership campaign.

James’ career has given him a unique insight into the machinery of UK politics, and he brings all of his commercial and political experience to his work – ensuring clarity and insight where the worlds of politics and business meet.

Lawrence is a Senior Associate at Herminius, where he focuses on open-source intelligence, conducting enhanced due diligence for a range of clients across Asia, Africa and the Middle East.

Previously, he worked in the UN’s Department of Peace Operations, as well as for a strategic communications firm based in the Middle East, conducting open-source research throughout Sub-Saharan Africa, MENA and South Asia.

Lawrence holds both an MA in International Security and a BA in War Studies from King’s College London, and is fluent in French and English.

Imogen joined Herminius in 2022, where she focuses on open-source intelligence and supports our enhanced due diligence and intelligence requirements.

She has a Master’s in International Security from Sciences Po, Paris, during which time she studied at MGIMO university, Moscow. Her speciality areas of study included security issues in the post-soviet sphere, strategic intelligence studies, and defence in the information sphere.

She also has a first-class MA in French and Russian from the University of St Andrews, and also speaks Italian.

Prior to Herminius, Imogen consulted for other London-based intelligence firms on topics relating to Russia and CIS countries, and worked for the NHS in various administrative roles.

Frank joined Herminius in 2024, where he focuses on open-source intelligence and supports our enhanced due diligence and intelligence requirements.

He holds an MA in International Conflict Studies with distinction from King’s College London and a BA in Politics with first class honours from the University of Leeds.

Prior to Herminius, Frank worked for a maritime risk firm, delivering credit risk reports on companies in the shipping, energy and commodity trading industries.