Damon Buffini is an English businessman, who heads the private equity company Permira.
Born in Leicester in 1962, the son of an American serviceman and a British woman, he was educated at the Gateway school in Leicester. Buffini graduated in law from St John's College, Cambridge University, and has an MBA from Harvard Business School.[1]
Buffini worked for LEK Partnership and the Imperial Group working as a management consultant, before joining Schroeder's leveraged buyout team. He became a partner in 1992, and promoted to Managing Partner of of the UK business in 1999, and Managing Partner of Permira in 2000, just before it was bought by a management group and renamed as Permira.
Buffini is also a non-executive board member of SVG Capital plc.
Married to an ethnic Chinese solicitor Deborah, the couple have two children and live in Wandsworth. Buffini plays tennis and golf, football for a local amateur side, and supports Arsenal.
A devout Christian, Buffini and his family attend the Holy Trinity Church in Clapham. One weekend, the GMB Union placed a camel outside the church in a reference to the phrase from the Bible, with the stated aim of exposing Buffini as a hypocrite. The following week in an open letter he invited their General Secretary Paul Kenny to a meeting.[2]