Ardian Infrastructure- Mark Voccola
Mark Voccola, Senior Managing Director and Co-Head of Ardian Infrastructure, gave a presentation on private equity. He explained his background and the different jobs he was employed at before he became Co-Head of Ardian Infrastructure. Ardian Infrastructure works with many different countries, mainly in Europe, in essential infrastructures. Mr. Voccola explained a lot of the work Ardian does, including power plants and toll roads across Europe, mainly in France. They aim to introduce energy efficiency policies in all of their portfolio companies.
Mr. Voccola gave an in-depth explanation of what private equity means and the different jobs involved in private equity. He described private equity as investing directly in private companies with the goal of improving company value and selling at a profit. He used the term “fundraising” frequently to explain the way firms have to raise money into closed-end funds and invest it into the companies, to then exit. He then explained the different career paths in private equity, with some of them being in finance/accounting, HR/operations, data analysists, and he pointed out that the most important role in private equity is the “fundraising” team, because that is how they get firms to invest in to begin with.
Overall, I learned a lot of new and useful information from Mr. Voccola’s presentation. Before his presentation, I knew little to nothing about private equity, and after the presentation I feel a lot more confident in knowing what private equity is and how it it used in so many different companies.