Press mention from WSJ Pro – Private Equity

Six of Private Equity’s Most Influential Female Gatekeepers

By Chris Cumming and Dawn Lim
29 Aug 2017

Women constitute a small proportion of senior employees at buyout and venture firms. But women have been far more of a presence as influential gatekeepers of capital at pensions, endowments and other institutions.

This group of women is transforming the face of private equity. Many have become bridges between private-equity firms and the institutional-investor world. They have fought for investor-friendly terms, challenged firms to build diverse investment teams and driven new, nontraditional fund structures. These are the women that private equity peers have recognized for their leadership, diverse experience and clout as investors.

JENNIFER CHO RINEHART

Partner and Chief Executive, Acalyx Advisors Inc.

With Acalyx Advisors Inc., a firm she co-founded in 2015, Jennifer Cho Rinehart hopes to shape a new model of placement agent. The idea behind Acalyx is “to create a really focused, curated platform of high quality [general partners], and then keep it to that,” she said. Acalyx works with a closely pruned group of sponsors, marketing about three or four funds a year, and aims to provide general partners and limited partners with a level of attention and long-term thinking beyond what the largest placement agents can offer, but with more resources than the small firms. “We had a view that we could differentiate ourselves from the large banks and be more than just a two-man shop,” she said.