People 10-21-02

Marsha Yuan joined Riverside Company in New York as an associate. Yuan was most recently at Merrill Lynch and was placed at Riverside by Glocap Search LLC.

Martin Wierzbicki recently joined Crimson Ventures in Palo Alto, Calif., as an associate. Martin was most recently at Salomon Smith Barney and was placed at Crimson by Glocap Search.

Olivier Lesca has been named as director of 3I Groupís European buyout business. Lesca was formerly an investment banker at UBS Warburg.

Bryan Fairfield has been named the first-ever director of Invest Nebraska Corp., a group created last year to help Nebraska entrepreneurs secure venture capital funding. Fairfield was previously a vice president with private equity firm DreamField Partners.

Lawrence Benjamin has been named CEO of The NutraSweet Co., For the last eight years, Benjamin has been a senior operating executive and advisor for Oak Hill Capital and Roark Capital Group.

Bruno Deschamps, formerly president and chief operating officer of Ecolab, has been named a partner at Clayton, Dubilier & Rice. Deschamps will be based in the New York-based private equity firmís London office.

Francesca Galante has joined Ian Schrager Hotels as the vice president of European acquisitions and business development. Galante was hired from European based private equity fund Soros Real Estate Partners. Prior to that, she worked in investment banking at Merrill Lynch International in London.