The 21 most powerful players in private equity

(Credit: Courtesy of Carlyle Group; Courtesy of TSG Consumer Partners; Courtesy of Vista Equity Partners)

Good morning. Luisa Beltran here filling in for the Term Sheet team.

I’ve been covering private equity and Wall Street for years. I remember in 2007 when Orlando Bravo became a name partner at the firm that eventually turned into Thoma Bravo. I remember when Blackstone listed its shares and how people were underwhelmed by the groundbreaking IPO. I remember when BX, KKR, Apollo Global Management, Carlyle Group and TPG still called themselves private equity firms. Years later, these same firms remain the industry leaders and they’ve become so successful—Blackstone’s AUM crossed $1 trillion in July—that all have gone public. They’ve also all expanded beyond PE into sectors like credit or real estate or growth. With this success, came the age old question of succession. It had to eventually happen for the industry to survive, but that doesn’t mean it was easy.

In my latest piece for Fortune, I wrote about 21 private equity power players that are shaping the industry today. I wanted to capture both the household names that built the field, as well as a crop of up-and-coming dealmakers making waves.

The list isn’t perfect—one constant in the PE world is a dearth of diversity. Our list highlights several male PE executives of color, like Robert Smith and Orlando Bravo, and some women. For the most part though, these execs are the outliers. There isn’t much data about this topic that I could find. Private equity does a better job at hiring people of color for entry level positions compared to corporate America but lags when it gets to the C-suite, according to a McKinsey & Co report from 2022. In PE, women of color accounted for 39% of junior positions, while men of color were 37%, the report said. For managing director positions, women of color comprised 20% of roles, while men were 16%. In the C-suite, women accounted for 12% of positions while men were 11%. [When it comes to Corporate America, people of color again do best with entry level roles; women comprised 37% of positions while men were 33%. This falls to 19% for women in MD positions while men were 16%. For the C-suite, percentages drop slightly for women but not as much as in PE. Women of color accounted for 18% of the C-suite while men increased to 17%, the McKinsey report said.]

And while PE had a rough 2022, the industry is still massive. “Last year, 12 million people worked at companies owned by buyout shops, or at the PE firms themselves, earning $1 trillion in wages and benefits, according to a report from professional services firm EY that was prepared for the American Investment Council. (The AIC is a lobbying group for the private equity industry.) Some of the most well-known companies, including Airbnb, Uber, and Dunkin’, have been backed by private equity firms,” I wrote in my Fortune story.

You can read the full list here. Already my inbox is brimming with suggestions for our next list (and complaints about who made this one) so feel free to chime in.

Separately, in deal news, General Atlantic is expected to announce later Tuesday that it is buying a stake in Financial Information Technologies [“Fintech”], a payments provider for the alcohol industry. TA Associates, the growth private equity firm, is the seller. Fintech’s clients include P.F. Chang’s, KD Market and Founders Group International. The sale values Fintech at roughly $1 billion, according to three banking and private equity executives. William Blair served as financial advisor to Fintech while Raymond James advised GA.

And now for Term Sheet's monthly cartoon from Ian Foley...