Didier Breant
- Specialism: Governance, finance, and risk leadership for alternative investment managers, banks and regulated financial institutions. Thirty years of practitioner experience spanning audit, investment banking, and hedge fund senior executive roles.
• Governance framework design — policy through to board and committee structure
• Valuation policy and complex instrument governance (OTC, illiquid assets)
• Fund accounting architecture — valuation agent model, Shadow NAV, FA reconciliation
• Risk limit framework design — VaR, Greeks, PM-level and fund-level governance
• CFO and COO function build-out — from inception to institutional scale
• AI governance policy for alternative investment managers
• Business optimisation — transfer pricing, R&D relief, regulatory capital, margin optimisation
• Investor relations and ODD/IDD support
• Multi-jurisdiction board and regulatory engagement (FCA, DFSA, SEC/NFA, MFSA, JFSC)
• Technology-led operational automation — P&L, fund accounting, expense management - Track Record: DB Strategic Advisory
2025–present. Founder. Portfolio executive practice offering NED appointments, strategic advisory, consulting, and fractional CFO/COO engagements to alternative investment managers and regulated financial institutions.
Eisler Capital
2016–2025 (9 years). CFO, CRO, and Senior Advisor. Joined at inception. Built entire governance, finance, and risk infrastructure as the firm grew from $0.7bn to $4.5bn AUM and from 10 to 300+ people across multiple global locations. Board directorships across five jurisdictions (FCA, DFSA, SEC/NFA, MFSA, JFSC). Contributed directly to capital-raising through ODD/IDD presentations.
Goldman Sachs London
1996–2016 (20 years). Managing Director, Product Control and Valuation. Led global product control across Rates, FX, Emerging Markets, and Macro Prop. Recognised firm-wide Subject Matter Expert in derivatives valuation. Championed adoption of OIS discounting and FVA — generating hundreds of millions in revenues and savings. Promoted to Managing Director 2010.
Deloitte Paris
1992–1996. Auditor. Grounding in financial control and audit rigour. - Offer: I work with founders, boards, and leadership teams in alternative investment management , banks and regulated financial services who need senior, practitioner-level judgement — not generic consultancy.
Depending on the engagement, I operate as a Non-Executive Director (independent challenge, multi-jurisdictional regulatory credibility), Strategic Advisor (governance, operational scaling, investor scrutiny), Consulting expert (defined-scope technical projects), or Fractional CFO/COO (institutional-grade leadership for emerging managers and firms in transition).
Every engagement draws on having built and led these functions myself — at Goldman Sachs for twenty years and at Eisler Capital from inception. The value is in what has already been done, not in frameworks assembled from observation. - Didier says: “Good governance doesn’t just protect you from disaster – it opens doors. The firms that treat it as a strategic asset rather than a compliance cost are the ones that grow, attract institutional capital, and survive periods of stress.”
- Try me: linkedin.com/didier-breant
With more than thirty years of experience, I reached a point where the portfolio model felt like the natural next chapter, not a fallback, but a deliberate choice. Working across multiple organisations allows me to contribute more broadly and continue learning through different firms, challenges, and stages of development. Curiosity has always been one of my strongest professional drivers, and a single institutional role at this stage would constrain it.
That signal was already there at Eisler Capital, where I held CFO, CRO, Board Director, and Senior Advisor mandates. Operating across functions and governance layers within a single firm made it clear that a portfolio model across multiple organisations was both feasible and well suited to how I work.
I also see genuine market demand, particularly from emerging managers who need institutional grade governance and financial leadership but are not yet ready to build a full senior headcount. The portfolio model provides an efficient answer to that need on both sides. More broadly, after three decades, I want to pass on what I have learned across multiple organisations rather than concentrating that experience in one place. That feels like a better use of it at this stage in my career.
When Eisler Capital wound down, I saw it as an opportunity rather than a disruption. For the first time in thirty years, I could step back, take stock of what I had built and learned, and think deliberately about what I wanted the next chapter to look like. The answer was the portfolio model.
From there, I took a number of practical steps. I defined the offering across four distinct engagement modes: fractional C suite roles (CFO and COO), consulting, NED positions, and strategic advisory, each with a clear value proposition. I established the entity, DB Strategic Advisory, in the UK, and began building an external presence through an enhanced LinkedIn profile, a developing website, and a thought leadership programme focused on governance and AI for hedge fund and asset management audiences.
I also began actively working my network. Thirty years across Goldman Sachs and Eisler Capital provided a wide and deep professional base, which became the primary source of early pipeline. The network is the starting point for securing mandates, but it requires time and consistent effort, seeding conversations and maintaining visibility, as the right opportunities rarely appear immediately. Thought leadership helps accelerate that visibility and keeps the practice front of mind with the right audience.
At this stage, the main challenge is securing the first meaningful mandate, the kind of engagement that validates the model and begins to make the practice commercially self sustaining. Until that point, there is an inevitable element of uncertainty in the portfolio career choice. That is the reality of the transition, and it is important to acknowledge it directly.