INTELLIGENTPE - Key Persons


Anatole Pevnev - Founder, President

Job Titles:
  • Founder
  • President
  • Advisory Board Chair / Founder and President
Anatole Pevnev is the Founder and President of IntelligentPE and the Chair of IntelligentPE's Advisory Board. Anatole has more than 35 years of experience in real asset management and investment, investment research, securities research, as well as institutional investment consulting. Most recently he served as Managing Director of US Agriculture, a farmland asset management firm he co-founded in 2015. Anatole served as Chair of the NCREIF Farmland Committee and has been a regular speaker at industry conferences. Prior to the launch of US Agriculture, Anatole oversaw fund manager research and underwriting for The Townsend Group and served on the advisory boards of seven large open-end real estate funds. Anatole oversaw the REIT research group at KeyBank Capital Markets and was a senior member of the investment research teams at both Prudential Real Estate Investors and Aetna Realty Investors. Mr. Pevnev served as Director of Investment Research at Property & Portfolio Research, where he was responsible for developing and implementing portfolio optimization strategies for public and corporate pension plans. Anatole was the Founder and Publisher of REITcafe.com, launched in 2005, focusing on the global public real estate market. REITcafe was acquired in 2009 by Euromoney Institutional Investor PLC (publisher of Institutional Investor Magazine). Anatole was a contributing author of the Urban Land Institute's "The Investors Guide to Commercial Real Estate", published in 2014. He earned a Bachelor of Science Degree in Management from Boston University and an Master of Science Degree in Real Estate Investment and Development from New York University, where he was a voting member of the New York University Graduate Studies Commission.

Danny Thomas - Shareholder

Job Titles:
  • Member of the Advisory Board
  • Senior Director
  • Shareholder
Danny Thomas is a Shareholder and Senior Director of LAWD (Land • Agribusiness • Water • Development), a boutique appraisal, brokerage, and advisory firm with operations throughout eastern Australia, and serves as a Member of IntelligentPE's Advisory Board. Danny is also the Founder and Managing Director of Ulupna Pastoral Company, which operates more than 20,000 acres of irrigated cropping land located either side of the Murray River near Tocumwal, NSW, Australia. Danny was previously the Regional Director of CBRE Agribusiness with responsibility for building the agribusiness business line across Australia and New Zealand. With over 25 years of experience in rural real estate as an appraiser and broker, Danny has a great depth of knowledge about the conditions that influence farmland values and has advised a broad range of vendors and purchasers on some of the largest agribusiness transactions in Australia for an aggregate of circa $5 billion in combined transaction values over the last 10 years.

Detlef Schoen - CEO

Job Titles:
  • Chief Executive Officer
  • Member of the Advisory Board
  • Founder and Chief Executive Officer of NewAg Partners Management LLP
Detlef Schoen is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of NewAg Partners Management LLP and a Member of IntelligentPE's Advisory Board. Detlef stepped away from his role as Head of Real Assets at Insight Investment, an $800 bn AUM subsidiary of BNY Mellon, in order to launch NewAg as a regenerative farming and agribusiness investment management firm. With more than four decades of experience in farming and a multi-billion-dollar track record as a senior agribusiness executive, Detlef Schoen is one of few experts globally that combine experience and a successful track record all the way from hands-on farming to international agribusiness and financial markets, and highly respected for his track record and thought leadership in sustainable agricultural investment. After his studies of agricultural economics he joined Cargill where he had a fast-track career with stations as country manager, Cargill Germany, and product line manager of the European grain trading business. He left Cargill to set up his own grain origination company which he grew from a small local trader to a significant country merchant and the largest exporter of German quality wheat. Having exited from this business, he ran the global grain book for NIDERA - at the time the 6th largest grain trader worldwide. From NIDERA he moved to Aquila Capital to build a farm investment franchise which quickly became the largest foreign investor in New Zealand agriculture at the time. He left Aquila Capital to invest in and manage a club deal of grass-fed beef farms in Australia from where he transferred to London as Head of Real Assets at Insight Investment.

Marcus Wignell - COO

Job Titles:
  • Chief Operating Officer
  • Member of the Advisory Board
  • Chief Operating Officer of NewAg Partners Management LLP
Marcus Wignell is Chief Operating Officer of NewAg Partners Management LLP and a Member of IntelligentPE's Advisory Board. Marcus has 20 years of relevant experience and 15 years of Real Assets experience - most recently as an Executive Committee Member at Amherst Capital, the direct real estate group within BNY Mellon Investment Management, where amongst other duties he led the formation, portfolio acquisition and initial portfolio management of their US Single Family Equity business. Marcus left the Amherst Capital subsidiary of BNY Mellon following the sale of the business and in order to assist with the launch of NewAg. During his career Marcus has been involved in the development and sale of dozens of funds and separate accounts with total equity commitments in excess of $22 billion. After leaving Australia in 2001 he worked in London before moving to the US in 2008. Prior to BNY Mellon Marcus held various positions as an advisor to Capital Dynamics and as the Global Head of Product Development and Key Accounts at RREEF. Marcus qualified and practiced as a lawyer in various roles including Deutsche Bank's investment bank where he focused on derivatives and structured products. Prior to joining Deutsche Bank he was Legal Counsel for Morgan Stanley and worked at Clifford Chance LLP in London, England. He graduated from the University of Melbourne and was awarded his law degree from La Trobe University. Marcus is qualified to practice Law in England and Wales, is a Barrister and Solicitor in Victoria, Australia and is an Attorney of the New York Supreme Court. He participates in numerous charitable organizations including as a former Board Member for the Wright Locke Farm Conservancy and as an active supporter of WFEE (Winchester Foundations for Educational Excellence).