FORMER Stagecoach chief executive Mike Kinski has been propelled into the limelight after private equity firm Terra Firma appointed him as part of a triumvirate to oversee a new $2 billion (£1.2bn) Renewable Energy Infrastructure Fund (REIF).
The move follows the surprise departure of Damian Darragh, regarded as a star manager at Terra Firma, which is controlled by financier Guy Hands.
Mr Darragh had been due to head up the fund alongside six other people.
Mr Kinski, a former executive at ScottishPower succeeded founder Brian Souter at Perth-based Stagecoach in 1998. He lasted just two years having endured a set of profit warnings in the wake of its £750 million acquisition of Coach USA.
But he has since built a career over 14 years at Terra Firma, where he is operational managing director.
He has been involved with a number of its investments including chairing wind power company Infinis before its stock market listing last year. He remains on its board.
Terra Firma said that it had asked Mr Darragh to leave after a review which is understood to have considered his fundraising and leadership skills.
It turned to Mr Kinski, who had both fundraising and corporate management experience to serve alongside recent hires Stefan Thiele and Ingmar Wilhelm in jointly leading its renewable energy infrastructure team.
"Mike, Stefan and Ingmar have outstanding financial, operational and transactional skills," Terra Firma said.
Mr Kinski joined Terra Firma in 2000 after leaving Stagecoach. He had previously been chief executive of power distribution and water operations for ScottishPower.
Mr Hands and Mr Darragh were colleagues at Japanese bank Nomura before founding Terra Firma in 1994.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article