Meet our team

Fred de Coninck-Smith Managing Partner

Fred is the Founder and Managing Director of Durable Brands and currently leads one of our portfolio companies (OutnAbout) as CEO

Earlier in his career, Fred was an Associate Partner at Bain & Company where he focused on Private Equity and Value Creation topics.

Previously he worked in sales and innovation at AB-InBev, where he launched products and managed a P&L

Tom Burne Partner

Tom is a Partner at Durable Brands, with a focus on developing deal-flow and pursuing new acquisitons

Tom joined Durable Brands from a strategy & M&A role within a large family office, with separate experience in strategy & value creation for a large (>£4B enterprise value) PE-owned asset.

Earlier in his career, Tom led commercials and supply chain for a fast growing FMCG start-up (>$110M VC funding raised) and also spent 5 years at Bain & Company where he focused on strategy and long-term performance improvement

Cory Needle Active Board Member

Cory is currently a Partner at Bain & Company, having been with the firm for ~20 years, specializing in consumer-facing products with a focus on marketing and growth

He has significant experience in supporting both corporates and private equity funds to drive value creation in consumer-facing businesses

Cory has a BA from Yale and a JD from Harvard Law School

Anuj Tyagi Head of Growth

Anuj has more than a decade of experience across multiple eCommerce businesses with deep expertise in digital and growth marketing.

He has experience which spans established eCommerce businesses (coinjoos.com & HomeShop18), successful consume scale-ups (Careem) and his own DTC start-up (Zoey Inc).

Giulia Watson Marketing

Giulia is a freelance marketing leader who works for Durable Brands portfolio company OutnAbout and will continue to support future acquisitons.

Giulia has +15 years experience supporting large corporates and startups to design and execute marketing plans, including for Mars, PepsiCo, Nestle

Steffen Melgaard Active Board Member

Stephen is a former private equity professional at EQT and IK Partners with board experience from a number of products and services companies (e.g. Colosseum Dental Group, Telecomputing, Hansen Protection, etc.)

Earlier in his career he was a manager at Bain & Company in the consumer and Private Equity practices. Prior to this, Steffen worked in Corporate Development at Orkla, one of Scandinavia's largest CPGs

Rob Eris Product Designer

Rob is a freelance industrial designer who currently works for Durable Brands portfolio company, OutnAbout and will continue to support future acquisitons.

Rob has 10+ years industrial design experience from agencies and in full time roles at Dyson and G Tech

Rob is also a lecturer in Design at Brunel University