Exclusive: Carlyle Group promotes new CIO as firm’s chief executive drills down on efficiency

A woman with dark hair and wearing red lipstick looks directly at the camera smiling
Carlyle Group's executive promotion, Lúcia Soares
Courtesy of Carlyle Group

A few months after former Goldman executive Harvey Schwartz became the new CEO of $381 billion private equity and alternative investment firm Carlyle Group, he is beginning to fill out his leadership team with some new faces. 

Today Carlyle promoted Menlo Park-based Lúcia Soares as Chief Information Officer and head of technology transformation, effective immediately. The announcement follows another made just a few weeks ago—that head of global financial services John Redett will become CFO and head of corporate strategy this fall, succeeding CFO Curt Buser, who is retiring from the firm. 

“I think it’s the beginning of a new chapter for us to look at new opportunities for growth,” Soares, a former Johnson & Johnson vice president who first joined Carlyle in 2019, says of what it’s been like to work under Schwartz these past few months. “It’s been an infusion of new energy and new possibility.”

Soares’ position isn’t new, though it has been vacant for two years since the passing of former CIO Michael Haas in June 2021, with interim leadership overseeing the responsibilities. 

Soares has spent the last two years working with the management teams of the investment firm’s portfolio, helping them use technology—things like automation and data analytics—to help drive revenue or cut costs. She and Carlyle’s Redett, have served on a board together at insurance company Hilb Group—where Soares says she advised them to consolidate their tech system, which she says both saved $5 million and, later, drove $2 million in revenue in the last six months after the company started leveraging data analytics. Now, she says, she’s expanding her focus beyond the portcos to her employer—using technology to make Carlyle more efficient as an organization. 

Efficiency is a key priority for Schwartz, who said on his first earnings call for Carlyle in May that he has been a “believer in disciplined growth” throughout his career and that, as Carlyle grows, his team is “working to identify areas where we can instill more discipline around our operations.” When companies use words like “efficiency,” particularly in a down market, that can also sometimes translate into job cuts and hiring freezes. When asked whether there could be job cuts at Carlyle in the future, a Carlyle spokeswoman pointed to the following statement from the firm’s first-quarter earnings:

“While we expect to see top line fee growth this year, we also expect to see continued investments into our teams and businesses. We will be disciplined managing our expenses while, at the same time, ensuring the firm is well positioned to grow over time.”  

It’s worth mentioning that Schwartz is under pressure to grow the firm and improve Carlyle’s lagging performance. Carlyle’s previous CEO, Kewsong Lee, abruptly resigned last summer. While the private equity markets are challenging for everyone right now, Carlyle has fallen behind several of its peers, and the company’s last earnings fell short of estimates (“Let me be clear, we’re not pleased with our first quarter results,” Schwartz said in May about the first quarter). But the company’s share price has been on the upswing since then, now trading for more than $34, up nearly 12% since May.

For her part, Soares has driven $250 million in what Carlyle calls “value creation” since her arrival to the firm—private equity shorthand for avoiding or cutting costs and finding ways to drive up revenue growth. Soares, who will report to COO Chris Finn, and also work closely with Redett, Schwartz, and Chief Information Security Officer Bethany De Lude, says she will be focused on how to grow and expand Carlyle’s tech stack—particularly around infrastructure, automation, and data innovation. That will entail working with both big tech companies and the “niche innovators,” she says, for things such as exploring pilot programs.

A.I., of course, will be something Soares is looking at, she says, pointing out how, when she worked in healthcare, she looked at how machine learning algorithms and data science could improve patient outcomes. At the same time, she says she is wary that “there’s a lot of cycles and trends in tech, and so we don’t want to exaggerate and assume that everything we’re going to do is going to be in A.I and ML.”

Soares, who was born and raised in Silicon Valley, says she will stay in Menlo Park for the new role, though she will continue to travel regularly.

“I love to be in the middle of the mix and close to the technology innovation,” she says.

See you tomorrow,

Jessica Mathews
Twitter: @jessicakmathews
Email: jessica.mathews@fortune.com
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VENTURE DEALS

- PVcase, a Vilnius, Lithuania-based solar project design software company, raised $100 million in funding from Highland Europe, Energize, and Elephant.

- Sylvera, a London-based carbon data provider, raised $57 million in Series B funding. Balderton Capital led the round and was joined by Index Ventures, Insight Partners, Bain & Company, Salesforce Ventures, Speedinvest, Seedcamp, LocalGlobe, Fidelity Strategic Ventures, and 9Yards Capital

- Runway, a San Francisco-based strategic planning platform, raised $27.5 million in Series A funding led by Initialized Capital. 

- Optalysys, a Leeds, U.K.-based photonic processing technology producer, raised £21 million ($21.46 million) in Series A funding co-led by Lingotto, imec.xpand, and Northern Gritstone

- Herself Health, a St. Paul, Minn.-based health care company for women 65 and older, raised $26 million in Series A funding. Michael Cline of Accretive led the round and was joined by Juxtapose.

- KOMI, a West Hollywood, Calif.-based creator commerce platform, raised $12 million in Series A funding. RTP, Third Prime, Antler, E& Capital, and Contour Ventures co-led the round and was joined by Sony Music Entertainment, Live Nation, and Laffitte Management Group

- Figure, a Sunnyvale, Calif.-based A.I. robotics company, raised $9 million in additional Series A funding from Intel Capital

- Ethena, a Lisbon-based infrastructure company for Ethereum, raised $6 million in seed funding. Dragonfly led the round and was joined by BitMEX founder Arthur Hayes, Maelstrom, and others. 

- Bureau, a San Francisco-based fraud and identity decisioning platform, raised an additional $4.5 million in Series A funding from GMO Venture Partners and GMO Payment Gateway

PRIVATE EQUITY

- AirDNA, backed by Alpine Investors, acquired Arrivalist, a New York- and San Francisco-based location intelligence platform. Financial terms were not disclosed. 

- BBB Industries, backed by Clearlake Capital Group, acquired Hydraulex, a Chesterfield, Mich.-based hydraulic solutions provider. Financial terms were not disclosed. 

- Capsa Healthcare, a Levine Leichtman Capital Partners portfolio company, acquired MASS Medical Storage, a Kansas City-based medical storage cabinets and carts developer and manufacturer. Financial terms were not disclosed.

- LightRidge Solutions, backed by ATL Partners, acquired Trident Systems, a Fairfax, Va.-based space electronics and C4ISR solutions provider. Financial terms were not disclosed.

- Thoma Bravo acquired a majority stake in Bluesight, an Alexandria, Va.-based medication intelligence platform. Financial terms were not disclosed.

EXITS

- Johnson Controls acquired FM:Systems, a Raleigh, N.C.-based digital workplace management and Internet of Things solutions provider for facilities and real estate professionals, from Accel-KKR for $455 million.

- Commercial Metals Company acquired EDSCO Fasteners, a Denton, Texas-based anchoring systems supplier, from MiddleGround Capital. Financial terms were not disclosed.

- Medical Device acquired NextPhase Medical Devices, a Mansfield, Mass.-based medical device contract manufacturer, from Kidd & Company. Financial terms were not disclosed.

OTHER

- Pathstone acquired Veritable, a Newtown Square, Pa.-based family office. Financial terms were not disclosed. 

IPOS

- ODDITY Tech, a Tel Aviv-based direct-to-consumer cosmetics and personal care products provider, plans to raise up to $357.89 million through the sale of 10.5 million shares priced between $32-34. Previously, the company planned to raise up to $315.79 million through the sale of 10.5 million shares priced between $27-30.

- Turnstone Biologics, a La Jolla, Calif.-based immunotherapies developer for solid tumors, plans to raise up to $81.2 million through the sale of 5.8 million shares priced between $12-14. 

FUNDS + FUNDS OF FUNDS

- Westlake Village BioPartners, a Los Angeles-based venture capital firm, raised $450 million for a fund focused on early-stage biotechnology companies in the Los Angeles region and beyond. 

- TLV Partners, a Tel Aviv-based venture capital firm, raised $250 million for a fund focused on  Israeli entrepreneurs in developer tools, A.I., cybersecurity, fintech, biotech, and other sectors.

PEOPLE

- Littlejohn & Co., a Greenwich, Conn.-based private investment firm, hired Philip Lo as a managing director of capital formation in the private equity group. Formerly, he was with GPI Capital.

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