Europe’s two largest private equity trade bodies will be under new leadership as the industry implements the controversial alternative investment fund manager directive, which looks likely to be unfavourable to the sector when it is finally passed through the European Union this summer.

Simon Walker, who has been chief executive of the British Private Equity and Venture Capital Association since 2007, will leave the trade body once a suitable replacement has been found by headhunters Odgers Berndtson, according to a BVCA spokesman. This is likely to be in 2011.