Marco Lebre is an experienced Private Equity professional with more than 16 years of experience of investment in Portugal and Spain. Currently he is Partner and Director of Crest Capital Partners (“Crest”). Crest was set up in 2017 to manage PE funds focused on Portuguese profitable SME’s. Currently Crest is managing Crest I (vintage:2018) and Crest II (2020). In 2003 Marco founded Explorer Investments and from 2003 until 2017 was Director of several portfolio companies of the funds managed by Explorer. At Explorer he was responsible for more than 30 transactions including acquisitions, bolt on acquisitions and exits. From 1998 until 2002, he worked as a Senior Analyst in BBVA’s Corporate Finance department in Portugal where was responsible for public and private equity investments, initial public offerings, trade sales, restructurings, and co-ordinating share issues. Previously, he was an Analyst at Grupo Jerónimo Martins’ Holding. Marco received an M.Sc. degree in Finance and Economics from the Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona in 1998 and a B.A. degree in Economics from the Universidade Católica Portuguesa de Lisboa in 1996. He was an Assistant Professor in the departmentsof Macroeconomics of the Universidade Católica and Finance in the Universitat Pompeu Fabra.