Nielsen's John Lewis Joins Private Equity Firm MDP

Chicago-based private equity firm Madison Dearborn Partners (MDP) has hired former Nielsen Holdings Global President John Lewis as an Executive Partner, to help it identify investment opportunities across the data and business analytics sectors.

Lewis was previously in charge of Nielsen's worldwide business in the FMCG vertical; and before this he led growth strategy in Latin America for both Watch and Buy, while also managing the business performance and strategic direction of the Buy category in the US and Canada. Earlier, he led Nielsen's North America Buy business, prior to which he was EVP, Marketing, ACNielsen USA. Before Nielsen, Lewis served as President and CEO of Knowledge Networks prior to its acquisition by GfK, and he was one of the first employees of The NutraSweet Company.

Lewis, who joins MDP's TMT Services Advisory Group, comments: 'I've long admired MDP's approach and I am pleased to be formally aligned with them to help identify attractive investment opportunities in the data and business analytics sector. MDP and I share a common conviction around the compelling opportunities this evolving field presents, as new ways of ingesting and analyzing data are developed to support the critical needs of consumer-facing businesses across a range of industry verticals'.

Web site: www.mdcp.com .