W. Wesley Devoto OBE
Atlanta Partner
W. Wesley Devoto was born in Louisville, Kentucky and later moved to Atlanta, Georgia where he graduated from Georgia Military Academy. Mr. Devoto completed his undergraduate degree at Georgia Institute of Technology, and attended graduate school at Emory University and Georgia State University. He holds the following university degrees: B.S.I.M., M.B.A., M.I.
Mr. Devoto joined Georgia Life and Health Insurance Company in 1964 as Assistant to the President. He served as Operations Vice President in 1966, Executive Vice President in 1967 and was named President in 1968.
In 1974, Mr. Devoto became President of Devoto and Company, Inc., a private international mergers and acquisition firm based in London and Atlanta. Devoto and Company, Inc. specializes in U.S. acquisitions (and occasionally divestitures) by U.K. companies in the $5 to $120 million price- range.
In the U.S., Mr. Devoto serves, or has served, on the Board of Directors of Echodata Corporation, U.K. based Learoyd Packaging Ltd., Sunbelt Express Company, Management Search International, and several smaller privately held companies. Mr. Devoto served for seven years as the Executive Chairman and CEO of ADCO Holdings, Inc., the U.S operating arm of ADCO GmbH of Dusseldorf, Germany.
He also has served on the U.K. boards of Swifts of Scarborough and First Olympian Securities Limited where he was Chairman. Mr. Devoto served for five years as the Non-Executive Chairman of Byotrol plc, a publicly-traded nanotechnology company based in Manchester, England whose shares are traded on the AIM section of the London Stock Exchange.
Mr. Devoto was a co-founder, director, and served as President of the British American Business Group – a 500+ member organization based in Atlanta and the second largest such group in the United States. Mr. Devoto was awarded the prestigious Oglethorpe Sword, an annual award presented by Her Britannic Majesty’s Consul General to the individual who is deemed to have made the greatest contribution to British-American trade and investment in the Southeastern United States during the year. Mr. Devoto has served on the Metropolitan Atlanta Advisory Board of the Salvation Army. He is currently serving as chairman on the Atlanta Board and the National Finance Committee of the English Speaking Union. In 2003, Queen Elizabeth II designated Mr. Devoto an honorary member of the Order of the British Empire (OBE).
Mr. Devoto represented the Atlanta Chamber of Commerce on economic missions to London, Paris and Moscow. He has lectured at the graduate business schools of the Georgia Institute of Technology, Georgia State University, Mercer University, and Emory University and was appointed Distinguished Lecturer in International Business by the Graduate School of Business Administration at Emory University. Mr. Devoto has spoken in London at the Institute for International Research regarding U.S. acquisitions.
In personal life, Mr. Devoto enjoys sailing and tennis, and for 15 years raced sports cars at the National Championship level. He was for 20 years the co-owner of the factory-authorized Ferrari automobile dealership in Atlanta.