Themis, the UK's leading AI-powered financial crime intelligence firm, today announced the appointment of Jake Astor as Managing Director for the UK & Europe. The appointment reflects accelerating demand from private credit, private equity, and the wider private capital ecosystem for technology and risk intelligence solutions capable of supporting institutional-grade due diligence, ongoing monitoring, and the rising evidentiary standards now expected by LPs, lenders, insurers, and regulators.
Based in London, Jake will lead growth, strategy, and senior client relationships across the UK and Europe, with an initial commercial focus on private credit and the wider private capital ecosystem.
The UK has established itself as Europe's largest and most active private capital market, with significant growth across private credit, private equity, secondaries, real assets, and venture. Across each of these strategies, the volume and sophistication of due diligence required at the deal stage and across portfolios has accelerated sharply. Credit funds, sponsors, and their advisers are increasingly required to evidence robust, auditable, and continuously refreshed financial crime controls across portfolio companies, borrowers, counterparties, and supply chains. Themis has built the category-leading platform for this requirement, combining AI-powered screening and monitoring at institutional scale with the human investigative depth that regulated clients demand.
Commenting on the appointment, Dickon Johnstone, Founder and CEO of Themis, said:
“Jake brings the right combination of private capital experience, technology operator background, and senior advisory credibility to lead our UK and European franchise at this stage of growth. Private credit and private capital are now the fastest-growing and most due-diligence-intensive segments of UK and European institutional finance, and they sit at the centre of our commercial focus in the region. Jake has lived in our clients' world and understands what they need from a partner. His appointment underlines our commitment to building the leading financial crime intelligence platform for institutional finance in the UK and Europe.”
Jake spent fifteen years in Asia as a founding partner of Cassia Investments, a private equity fund investing across China and Southeast Asia. He joined Themis from J Goodwin and Co, where as a Partner he advised later-stage technology companies on strategy, capital raising and M&A. Across his career, Jake has advised companies, governments, investors, and regulators globally, and founded multiple technology companies. Jake holds a BA (Honours) from the University of Oxford and an MBA in Finance from The Wharton School.
Jake Astor added:
“Themis has solved an issue that I have grappled with throughout my career and has built something rare in this market: a financial crime platform that combines genuine AI capability with senior human investigative expertise and the rigour that institutional clients require. The opportunity in the UK and Europe is significant, particularly across private credit and the wider private capital ecosystem. Credit funds, sponsors, lenders, and their professional advisers need partners that can meet the volume, sophistication, and pace of institutional finance today. That is the franchise I am here to build.”
Jake will be meeting clients and partners across the region over the coming weeks.
Themis is the UK's leading AI-powered financial crime intelligence firm and a certified B-Corp dedicated to stopping the deliberate exploitation of people, businesses, and the natural world. With offices in London, Abu Dhabi, Bahrain, Dubai, and Riyadh, Themis works with clients globally across regulated and unregulated sectors. Its flagship platform, Themis Search, combines advanced AI with investigative intelligence to make financial crime detection more effective, accessible, and impactful.
