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Nicola Allais has been appointed as executive vice president and CFO at Penton Media, which is backed by MidOcean Partners and Wasserstein & Co. Allais succeeds Jen Clifton, who left in August. Penton, of New York, is a business-to-business media company.

Ian Deas has been named a partner at Sydney-based private equity fund-of-funds Quay Partners and has taken over as head of its U.S. operations, based in San Francisco. He previously spent 18 years at Pantheon Ventures.

Larry A. Denton has been named president of Nobel Automotive Group, a unit of Orhan Holding AS of Turkey. Denton will direct all strategic and growth initiatives. Before joining Nobel Automotive, he founded Denton Consulting, a firm that provides operational and strategic advisory services to private equity funds and transportation industry businesses.

Growth equity firm General Atlantic, headquartered in Greenwich, Conn., has named five executives to managing director: Alexander A. Chulack, Cory A. Eaves and Brett B. Rochkind, all based in New York; Patricia L. Hedley, based in Greenwich, Conn.; and Gabriel C. Caillaux, based in London.

Matthew Guenther has been named a partner at buyout firm GenNx360 Capital Partners. Guenther has been at GenNx360 since 2007, prior to which he was at Walden Capital Partners. GenNx360 is focused on small, business-to-business companies generating $50 million to $500 million in revenues.

Ryan Harper and Edward Sobol have been appointed vice presidents at Welsh, Carson, Anderson & Stowe, the New York buyout firm. Harper was previously vice president at Summit Partners, while Sobol is a former vice president at Bain Capital. Welsh, Carson, Anderson & Stowe focuses mainly on information/business and health care, manages $20 billion in capital, and has a current portfolio of more than 30 companies.

Edward King has been named managing director of Barclays Capital’s Mergers & Acquisitions, IBD Asia Pacific unit, the bank announced. King was previously at Morgan Stanley’s Asia Pacific M&A division, where he worked on the $3.2 billion acquisition of Arrow Energy by PetroChina and Royal Dutch Shell and on the sale of Chartered Semiconductor to ATIC for $3.1 billion.

Vikram Lall, CBE (Commander of the Order of the British Empire), has joined the board of Elephant Capital, the India-focused buyout firm. Lall previously worked at Brewin Dolphin Holdings PLC, where he was corporate finance director and a board member for 10 years. He was also corporate finance director at Bell Lawrie and White & Co. He was appointed CBE in 2005 for services to business in Scotland.

Herbert Lanese has joined the board of Fairfax, Va., security company Kaseman LLC, which is backed by DC Capital Partners, which has offices in Washington, D.C., and Alexandria, Va.

Janet Matricciani has been named CEO at Antenna Audio, which was recently bought by the Wicks Group. Antenna Audio produces and delivers educational content for use in multimedia and mobile tours for museums, exhibitions and historic sites. Wicks is a New York buyout firm. Matricciani was previously senior VP of corporate development at K12 Inc.

Jeremy Neilson has joined Scalar Partners as a managing director and head of LP Advisory. Scalar Partners, based in San Francisco, provides business and transaction valuation services to growth equity companies and private equity firms. Neilson previously was the head of the state of Utah’s private equity program, the Utah Fund of Funds.

Crevan O’Grady, a European partner at the British buyout shop 3i Group plc, has transferred to its North American office from London. O’Grady led the Yellow Brick Road transaction, purchasing three small telephone directories providers, merging them and then selling them for around €600 million. 3i also announced that two new senior associates, Evan Klebe from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and Michael Tai from Harvard Business School, have joined the firm.

Olympus Partners, a buyout shop in Stamford, Conn., has named three new principals: Evan Eason, who joined Olympus in 2006 from American Capital Strategies, David Haddad, who joined Olympus from Cornerstone Equity Investors in 2008, and Michael Horgan, who joined Olympus in 2008 from G.L. Ohrstrom.

Guido Padovano has joined PineBridge Investments as the head of Latin America alternative investments, the company announced. Padovano, who will be based in Sao Paulo, Brazil, will oversee all private equity operations and manage the firm’s investments in the region. He was previously head of Merrill Lynch Private Equity in Latin America.

Bob Purcell bas been named chairman and chief executive of Protean Holdings Corp. Purcell was most recently a board member and strategic adviser to the developer of in-wheel electric drive systems. He previously worked at General Motors Corp. on the GM EV-1 electric vehicle. Purcell left GM in 2008. Oak Investment Partners of Westport, Conn., is an investor in Protean Holdings.

Jared Ruger and Kevin Yamashita have been promoted to partner at Bertram Capital, of San Mateo, Calif. Ruger is founding member of Bertram’s investment team and was formerly with Oak Hill Capital Management. Yamashita was previously with Calera Capital.

John Swidler, Jean-Pierre Ouellet, Barry Tissenbaum and Francois R. Roy have been named members of the Noranda Income Fund by the Noranda Operating Trust. The Noranda Income Fund was formed to buy Noranda Inc.’s processing facility and ancillary assets in Quebec.