SQ19 PE/VC Lab Series Talk: Tim Lawler '05. Partner, Waud Capital Partners. "PRIVATE EQUITY: It's All About The People"

The world of private equity started as financial engineering. Finance experts with limited knowledge of the nuance of the businesses were able to buy broken businesses, often at favorable prices, financed heavily with debt and be very successful. As the capital, both financial and human, expanded in the industry, the greater competition made this simple strategy unsustainable. Private equity evolved from simple finance to the more complicated world of general management, requiring deeper understanding of the underlying business but also a breadth of skills across the disciplines.

Please join us for a fireside chat with Mr. Tim Lawler, a partner at Waud Capital Partners where he leads the firm's human capital activities and manages a dedicated human capital advisory and executive search team. Mr. Lawler has been an entrepreneur (Lawler Brewing Company). Both prior to and after Kellogg he worked in the executive search industry before bring his knowledge of human capital into the word of private equity, first at Highland Capital Management and now at Waud Capital Partners (WCP). At WCP he leads the firm's human capital activities and manages a dedicated human capital advisory and executive search team. This team focuses on identifying leading executives in WCP's target niches within its two industry verticals of Healthcare Services and Business and Technology Services. Mr. Lawler's team is responsible for building out the management teams in new and existing platforms and providing strategic human capital support to portfolio companies. Mr. Lawler also leads key elements of talent management within WCP. Mr. Lawler holds a B.B.A. from the University of Wisconsin in Milwaukee and an M.B.A. from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.

We will discuss the evolving industry of private equity, what he expects the future to look like, both short term and long term, and why he feels students should have a much broader mindset when approaching this industry.

Lunch will be served.

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