Private Capital

Mark Strauch is a founding partner and president of the private equity firm Alpine Investors, known for its unique CEO training program. With a background in Industrial Engineering from Lehigh University and subsequent business studies focused on finance, his career spans operational roles at companies like Electronic Arts, entrepreneurial ventures such as the early cloud concept Desktop.com, and significant leadership challenges, including orchestrating a complex turnaround as CEO of Business Engine. Mark provides a detailed look into Alpine's operational methodology. He explains the origins and mechanics of the firm's fascinating CEO-in-Residence and CEO-in-Training programs, illustrating how this focus on securing leadership talent prior to acquisition shapes their investment strategy, sourcing advantage, and approach to scaling portfolio companies, exemplified through the creation of the company Ascend. He also discusses the firm's distinct culture, its strategic focus on talent and add-on acquisitions, and offers his views on market dynamics, including exit strategies and the role of AI. Please enjoy my conversation with Mark Strauch.   Alpine Investors:  https://alpineinvestors.com Circulus Substack:  https://circulus.substack.com/ If you like these discussions, please subscribe or leave a review.  NOTE: This podcast is for educational and entertainment purposes only. Anything said by the guests or host should not be construed as legal or investment advice. Thanks for listening. Joe Reilly is the head of Circulus Group, a family office network, and the host of The Inheritance Podcast. FOLLOW JOE: https://twitter.com/joereillyjr WEBSITE: https://circulus.substack.com/ INHERITANCE PODCAST:   https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-inheritance-podcast/id1644964   If you like this show, do me a favor and send it to someone you think would enjoy it.  Just copy the link into an email or text.  I appreciate it.   S4E6 ©2025 Joe Reilly

Today we are going to hear the story of one of the most interesting firms to spring from a significant family office.  JB and Tony Pritzker approached today’s guest, Paul Carbone, with the idea of expanding their direct investments into a free-standing firm called Pritzker Private Capital.  Paul takes us through that journey and we discuss the importance of a well-defined value system, the benefits of family capital, partnering with other families, the difference between flexible and patient capital, the problem with club deals, and why direct investing is not for everyone.   Paul Carbone is Co-Founder and Vice Chairman of Pritzker Private Capital. In 2012, Paul joined PPC’s predecessor company and later PPC as a managing partner and led the firm’s growth and development for more than ten years. Prior to PPC, Paul was the director and managing partner of Robert W. Baird & Co.’s Private Equity Group after serving as co‐director of investment banking responsible for Mergers and Acquisitions Advisory. Previously, Paul was senior vice president in the Investment Banking Group at Kidder, Peabody & Co.  Paul received his MBA from Harvard Business School and his B.A., Phi Beta Kappa, from The College of the University of Chicago.  Please enjoy my conversation with Paul Carbone. Pritzker Private Capital:  https://www.ppcpartners.com University of Chicago Booth School of Business Family Office Initiative:  https://www.chicagobooth.edu/research/family-office-initiative   Circulus Substack:  https://circulus.substack.com/   If you like these discussions, please subscribe or leave a review. NOTE: This podcast is for educational and entertainment purposes only. Anything said by the guests or host should not be construed as legal or investment advice. Thanks for listening.   Joe Reilly is the head of Circulus Group, a family office network, and the host of The Inheritance Podcast.   FOLLOW JOE: https://twitter.com/joereillyjr WEBSITE: https://circulus.substack.com/ INHERITANCE PODCAST:   https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-inheritance-podcast/id1644964   If you like this show, do me a favor and send it to someone you think would enjoy it.  Just copy the link into an email or text.  I appreciate it.     ©2025 Joe Reilly

Jason Mudrick is the Founder and Chief Investment Officer of the $3.4 billion Mudrick Capital Management, a firm renowned for its expertise in navigating complex credit situations and distressed opportunities. With a career spanning multiple market cycles, Jason brings a wealth of experience and a unique perspective on the evolving landscape of distressed investing.  Forgoing a law career at Skadden, he did M&A at Merrill and then joined Contrarian Capital where he learned debt at the right-hand of Jon Bauer.  Taking the leap after the financial crisis, Jason started Mudrick Capital with $5 million and faced the challenges of raising capital in a tough market that nonetheless contained many opportunities.  Jason has lots of great stories, and we explore his current take on the debt landscape, his toughest year, creditor-on-creditor violence, and the wild ride of AMC. Please enjoy my conversation with Jason Mudrick.   Mudrick Capital Management:  https://www.mudrickcapital.com/team   Circulus Substack:  https://circulus.substack.com/   If you like these discussions, please subscribe or leave a review. NOTE: This podcast is for educational and entertainment purposes only. Anything said by the guests or host should not be construed as legal or investment advice. Thanks for listening.   Joe Reilly is the head of Circulus Group, a family office network, and the host of The Inheritance Podcast.   FOLLOW JOE: https://twitter.com/joereillyjr WEBSITE: https://circulus.substack.com/ INHERITANCE PODCAST:   https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-inheritance-podcast/id1644964   If you like this show, do me a favor and send it to someone you think would enjoy it.  Just copy the link into an email or text.  I appreciate it.   ©2025 Joe Reilly

Today, we're charting the remarkable trajectory of a wealth management powerhouse: Pathstone. Joining us is Matt Fleissig, co-founder and CEO.   Pathstone is a great case study for the major trends in wealth management over the last ten years.  Pathstone’s DNA was from the well-known Harris MyCFO, which was the original dot-com family office formed by the founders of Netscape and WebMD.  Pathstone has since grown into a firm managing and advising on a remarkable $162 billion in assets. Matt has been a key architect of this growth story, and we'll explore how they navigated the complexities of multiple prominent acquisitions, how they developed their unique business model which has turned services into a revenue generator rather than a cost, and their recent notable acquisition of the $45 billion Hall Capital.   Earlier in Matt’s career, he held positions at Harris MyCFO Investment Advisory as a Principal and at Ayco, a Goldman Sachs Company, as a Financial Planner. He was a member of Harris Bank’s Outside Advisor Review Committee, which directed manager due diligence, search, and selection for the bank’s $60 billion platform, and was also a member of Harris Bank’s Investment Management Committee.  Matt earned a Bachelor of Arts in Economics from Muhlenberg College and an MBA in Finance from Fairleigh Dickinson University. Please enjoy my conversation with Matt Fleissig. Pathstone:  https://www.pathstone.com Circulus Substack:  https://circulus.substack.com/ If you like these discussions, please subscribe or leave a review.  NOTE: This podcast is for educational and entertainment purposes only. Anything said by the guests or host should not be construed as legal or investment advice. Thanks for listening. Joe Reilly is the head of Circulus Group, a family office network, and the host of The Inheritance Podcast. FOLLOW JOE: https://twitter.com/joereillyjr WEBSITE: https://circulus.substack.com/ INHERITANCE PODCAST:   https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-inheritance-podcast/id1644964 If you like this show, do me a favor and send it to someone you think would enjoy it.  Just copy the link into an email or text.  I appreciate it. ©2025 Joe Reilly

Michael Fisch is a founder and the CEO of American Securities, a $23 billion private equity firm that originated in the Rosenwald family office.  This is a great story of a fabled family office turning their investment DNA into a thriving private equity firm by buying market-leading businesses.  William Rosenwald, son of Julius Rosenwald who built Sears Roebuck, started the family office back in the 1940s, investing in private companies.  Michael’s mentor, Chuck Klein, took them to the next level in the 1980s and offered a role to 30-year-old Michael, who turned around and proposed building what became American Securities today.  We talk about their first acquisition, why they seek out market leaders, the growth of the firm, and overcoming bottlenecks, and their unique resource group that creates efficiencies and growth in their underlying companies. Before founding American Securities, he was a partner in two private equity funds, a consultant in the Paris office of Bain & Company, and a professional in the mergers and acquisitions department of Goldman Sachs. Michael received a BA in Economics and Policy Studies from Dartmouth College, where he is a Member of the President’s Leadership Council, and an MBA from Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business, where he has been a guest lecturer since 2006. Michael serves as a Director of the 1162 Foundation, a Member of the Atlantic Council’s Executive Committee of the Board of Directors, and Chairman of the Advisory Council of its Freedom and Prosperity Center, a Member of the Board of Trustees of Northwell Health, and Chair of the Board of Trustees of Princeton Theological Seminary. He has authored a number of articles and appeared as a guest on national television programs, all on private equity and investing. Please enjoy my conversation with Mike Fisch. American Securities:  https://www.american-securities.com/en/team/michael-fisch Circulus Substack:  https://circulus.substack.com/ If you like these discussions, please subscribe or leave a review.  NOTE: This podcast is for educational and entertainment purposes only. Anything said by the guests or host should not be construed as legal or investment advice. Thanks for listening. Joe Reilly is the head of Circulus Group, a family office network, and the host of The Inheritance Podcast. FOLLOW JOE: https://twitter.com/joereillyjr WEBSITE: https://circulus.substack.com/ INHERITANCE PODCAST:   https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-inheritance-podcast/id1644964   If you like this show, do me a favor and send it to someone you think would enjoy it.  Just copy the link into an email or text.  I appreciate it.   ©2025 Joe Reilly

Today’s guest is Jim Tananbaum of Foresite Capital.  One of the most exciting places AI is revolutionizing is drug discovery, so I was very excited to have Jim on today. Jim Tananbaum is the founder and chief executive officer of Foresite Capital, a U.S.-focused healthcare investment firm founded in 2011 that has approximately $3.5 billion in assets under management.  During the last three decades, Jim has been a thought partner for some of the most impactful and fastest-growth companies of their generation, including: 10x Genomics, Amerigroup, and Jazz Pharmaceuticals.    Jim’s first success came while he was still at Harvard Business School when he co-founded GelTex Pharmaceuticals, which brought two drugs to market and was acquired in 1999 for $1.4 billion.  Jim was the founding chief executive of Theravance, Inc., a co-founder of Prospect Ventures, and a partner of Sierra Ventures.  Jim studied engineering at Yale and earned an MD from Harvard Medical School, an MBA from Harvard Business School, and graduated from the Harvard MIT HST program. We discuss what it takes to start a drug company, breakthroughs in obesity, AI, and the challenge of data in drug discovery, understanding the language of biology, advances in pain and cancer research, and his thoughts on brain implants. Please enjoy my conversation with Jim Tananbaum.   Foresite Capital:  https://www.foresitecapital.com Jim’s Homepage:  https://jimtananbaum.com   If you like these discussions, please subscribe or leave a review. NOTE: This podcast is for educational and entertainment purposes only. Anything said by the guests or host should not be construed as legal or investment advice. Thanks for listening.   Joe Reilly is a family office consultant, and the host of the Private Capital Podcast as well as the Inheritance Podcast.  FOLLOW JOE: https://twitter.com/joereillyjr WEBSITE: https://circulus.substack.com/ INHERITANCE PODCAST:   https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-inheritance-podcast/id1644964   If you like this show, do me a favor and send it to someone you think would enjoy it.  Just copy the link into an email or text.  I appreciate it.   ©2025 Joe Reilly

Today’s guest is Mark Gerson of 3i Members. Mark is a remarkable entrepreneur, philanthropist, and master at creating networks.  He is most well known for founding Gerson Lehrman Group, the original and largest expert network in the world, and most recently, 3i Members, a global deal network for investors, all of whom have exited a company or led a family office.  Mark is also the chairman of United Hatzalah, a network of volunteer medics in Israel, and the cofounder of the African Mission Healthcare Foundation, which supports missionaries performing medical care in Africa.  Mark is a graduate of Williams College and has a JD from Yale Law School.  You should also know Mark is a big fan of Sinatra and Elvis.   We discuss the founding of GLG, his sports business Thuzio, the mechanics of 3i, and delve into the workings of United Hatzalah.  Mark was a real pleasure to talk to as he has such a broad range of interests.   Please enjoy my conversation with Mark Gerson.   Mark’s Podcast:  https://www.therabbishusband.com/ 3i Members:  https://www.3imembers.com/ United Hatzalah: https://israelrescue.org/ African Mission Healthcare Foundation: https://africanmissionhealthcare.org/about-us/history/   If you like these discussions, please subscribe or leave a review. NOTE: This podcast is for educational and entertainment purposes only. Anything said by the guests or host should not be construed as legal or investment advice. Thanks for listening.   Joe Reilly is a family office consultant, and the host of the Private Capital Podcast as well as the Inheritance Podcast.  FOLLOW JOE: https://twitter.com/joereillyjr WEBSITE: https://circulus.substack.com/ INHERITANCE PODCAST:   https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-inheritance-podcast/id1644964   If you like this show, do me a favor and send it to someone you think would enjoy it.  Just copy the link into an email or text.  I appreciate it.   ©2024 Joe Reilly

David Salem has had a remarkable career. He did his undergrad at Middlebury, went to Harvard Business School where he sat next to Seth Klarman, then went to work with Jeremy Grantham at GMO where he became a partner.  He started The Investment Fund for Foundations, a groundbreaking way for smaller endowments to benefit from professional investing and scale, and had David Swensen of the Yale Investment Office, Jack Meyer of the Harvard Management Company, and Seth Alexander of MIT, as well as many other talented investors on his board.  He went on to advise George Soros on his personal money and worked for many years with Chuck Feeney who famously gave away his entire multi-billion-dollar fortune.  David’s writings are voluminous and available online.  He is currently working on a book about Peter Bernstein, the great author of Against the Gods: The Story of Risk. We talk about how to allocate $5 billion dollars, filtering out impulsive managers, the founding of TIFF, the ideal size of an investment committee, and the persistent edge of Seth Klarman. It was my great pleasure to talk to David Salem.   Hedgeye:  https://insights.hedgeye.com/hedgeye-capital-allocation/ David Salem Articles:  https://www.epsilontheory.com/david-salem-2/ NOTE: This podcast is for educational and entertainment purposes only. Anything said by the guests or host should not be construed as legal or investment advice. Thanks for listening.   Joe Reilly heads Circulus Group, a family office network, and the host of the Private Capital Podcast as well as the Inheritance Podcast.  FOLLOW JOE: https://twitter.com/joereillyjr WEBSITE: https://circulus.substack.com/ INHERITANCE PODCAST:   https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-inheritance-podcast/id1644964   If you like this show, do me a favor and send it to someone you think would enjoy it.  Just copy the link into an email or text.  I appreciate it.   ©2024 Joe Reilly

Jennifer Prosek has built a powerhouse communications firm by focusing on asset management.  She asked herself, "Why does the financial industry not care about its brand, and why are they so on the back foot about everything?"  I was particularly keen to talk to her about how firms struggle to differentiate, especially as formerly low-profile parts of the industry, such as private equity funds, now look to expanding across the wealth channel and begin to look more like consumer brands.  We talk about how she built her firm from small beginnings; how family offices should think about their story;  being prepared for a crisis in advance; educating financial advisors; how to go from high-level awareness down the funnel to actual ROI; how to navigate Milken and Davos; and the future of AI in communications.   Jennifer Prosek is the founder and managing partner of Prosek Partners, a leading integrated marketing and communications firm with offices in nine cities around the world. The firm was named the best financial communications and marketing firm by PRovoke Media in 2023. Jennifer was also listed personally on The Wall Street Journal’s “Most Influential Decision Markers” list in 2023 and 2024.  She is the author of two books, “Army of Entrepreneurs” and “Raising Can-Do Kids.” Jennifer is on the board of the Mount Sinai Health System and the Museum of the City of New York and she received her MBA from Columbia University and a B.A. in English Literature from Miami University.    Jen is also known for her pithy sayings, and we managed to get a new one from her.  Please enjoy my conversation with Jennifer Prosek.   “Reaching for Retail” Prosek report:  https://www.prosek.com/news/prosek-report-reaching-for-retail-reveals-private-capital-firm-brands-remain-in-early-stage-of-development/   Army of Entrepreneurs:  https://www.amazon.com/Army-Entrepreneurs-Empowered-Workforce-Exceptional/dp/081443696X/   Raising Can-Do Kids:  https://www.amazon.com/Raising-Can-Do-Kids-Children-Fast-Changing-ebook/dp/B00O2BKKYE/   NOTE:  This podcast is for educational and entertainment purposes only.  Anything said by the guests or host should not be construed as legal or investment advice.  Thanks for listening.   Joe Reilly is a family office consultant, and the host of the Private Capital Podcast as well as the Inheritance Podcast.  FOLLOW JOE: https://twitter.com/joereillyjr Substack: https://circulus.substack.com/ INHERITANCE PODCAST:   https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-inheritance-podcast/id1644964   If you like this show, do me a favor and send it to someone you think would enjoy it.  Just copy the link into an email or text.  I appreciate it.   ©2024 Joe Reilly

Zoe Cruz is a prominent figure in the financial services industry, known for her significant contributions and groundbreaking achievements as one of the highest-ranking women on Wall Street. She was named one of the Forbes top 50 women in business four years in a row.  With a career spanning over 25 years at Morgan Stanley, where she served as Co-President, Cruz played a pivotal role in managing major revenue-generating businesses, starting with her taking charge of the FX desk in 1993. Her expertise and leadership have established her as a key player in the finance sector.  Cruz transitioned to founding her own asset management firm, Menai Financial Group. This move not only highlights her resilience but also her belief in the potential for growth and opportunity that can come from financial innovation. Zoe Cruz moved to the US from Greece at age fourteen and is a graduate of Harvard and Harvard Business School.  As we engage in this discussion with Zoe Cruz, we will explore her insights on leadership, inflection points in market cycles, why Morgan Stanley hired James Gorman, the current dangers of hidden leverage, and the bridges from TradFi to DeFi. Menai Financial:  https://menai.io NOTE:  This podcast is for educational and entertainment purposes only.  Anything said by the guests or host should not be construed as legal or investment advice.  Thanks for listening.   Joe Reilly is a family office consultant, and the host of the Private Capital Podcast as well as the Inheritance Podcast.  FOLLOW JOE: https://twitter.com/joereillyjr WEBSITE: circulus.substack.com INHERITANCE PODCAST:   https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-inheritance-podcast/id1644964   If you like this show, do me a favor and send it to someone you think would enjoy it.  Just copy the link into an email or text.  I appreciate it.   ©2024 Joe Reilly