Stewart Wilkinson received a first class honours in English Language and Literature from Oxford University in 1991. Early in his career he worked in asset finance, firstly at Hambros Bank followed by Samuel Montagu & Co in the City of London. 

He was then a founding member of Fitch Ratings Limited in Europe focusing on securitization ratings.  His role in the evolving European securitization market continued at Commerzbank AG where he structured and executed first-of-a-kind transactions to reduce capital allocation to portfolios of corporate loans and mortgages. 

His combined experience of asset finance and securitization formed the basis of Harbourmaster Capital Management Limited (Harbourmaster), the company he established in 2000 in Dublin, Ireland.  Harbourmaster went on to become the leading non-bank provider of finance to leveraged buy-outs in Europe.  Lord Jacob Rothschild’s investment vehicle RIT Capital Partners PLC acquired a significant minority stake in the business in 2005. 

In 2012, with assets under management of $12 billion, Harbourmaster was sold to GSO Capital Partners, the credit business of Blackstone.  Since then Stewart has built a portfolio of investments in the technology space and sits on the board of Bluevine Capital Inc, Ebury Partners UK Limited, Scorpeo, Arachnys and Cygnetise.