George Szemere

Head of Alternatives EMEA Wealth Management at Franklin Templeton

Speaker

George Szemere is Head of Alternatives EMEA Wealth Management at Franklin Templeton. He is responsible for strategy and distribution of Franklin Templeton's Private Markets solutions to the Wealth channel across EMEA. The Alternatives EMEA Wealth Management team is part of Franklin Templeton’s growing and dedicated c.$260bn alternatives platform, with strategic goal to helping the wealth channel deliver better investment outcomes for investors. The firm’s autonomous specialist investment managers, each with deep expertise, provide a diverse range of capabilities including private credit offerings from Benefit Street Partners and Alcentra, real estate from Clarion Partners, secondary private equity and co-investments from Lexington Partners, social infrastructure from Franklin Real Assets Advisors and venture capital from Franklin Venture Partners.

George brings over 22 years' experience in asset management across all client channels and has been with Franklin Templeton since 2019 in a leadership role in Alternatives. Prior to Franklin Templeton, George was Head of Liquid Alternatives EMEA at Columbia Threadneedle where he worked for over 10 years, and also held positions as Alternatives Specialist Sales and Alternatives Client Portfolio Manager during his time there. Prior to that, he worked for ABN AMRO Asset Management and Goldman Sachs Asset Management, in both firms as a Client Portfolio Manager.

George is fluent in English, German and Hungarian and has lived and worked in UK, Switzerland, Germany and Hungary. He earned a Bachelor degree of Social Science with honours in Economics from the University of Birmingham. He is also a Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst (CAIA).