BOSTON, October 15, 2024 – Advent International (“Advent”), one of the largest and most experienced global private equity investors, today announced the appointment of Vivek Sharma as a Senior Advisor. In this role, Sharma will focus on how Advent leverages AI to enhance sourcing, investing, value creation and knowledge-sharing capabilities across the firm and its portfolio companies
Sharma brings to Advent decades of experience driving growth through AI, data science and digital transformations. As a Senior Advisor, he will work closely with Advent’s North American investment team across various sectors to deepen AI-driven capabilities and resources to better identify, assess and quantify opportunities for investment, drive growth and operational improvement both at Advent and its portfolio companies as well as identify compelling investment opportunities in the AI space.
“As the world and financial markets rapidly evolve, AI will continue to drastically alter the way in which industries and organizations operate, creating a significant opportunity to take Advent to the next level in how we identify and support market leaders and industry disruptors,” said John Maldonado, Managing Partner at Advent. “Amid a changing and increasingly complex technology landscape, we believe that Vivek’s deep AI and data knowledge and network of relationships coupled with Advent’s global platform and resources will help drive both our firm and portfolio forward.”
“From pricing optimization and go-to-market strategy to operational efficiencies and risk management, AI has the potential to benefit all of our value creation levers across the portfolio if deployed correctly,” said Marco Mendes, Managing Director and Head of the Portfolio Support Group at Advent. “Vivek brings an exceptional history of scaling businesses through AI and data science as well as a highly nuanced understanding of the evolving AI landscape, which we expect will unlock and accelerate additional value creation at Advent and across our portfolio companies.”
“I am thrilled to work with a premier investment firm at the forefront of innovation at a time when AI is rapidly revolutionizing industries,” said Sharma. “AI’s ability to analyze vast datasets and uncover actionable insights can revolutionize decision making processes and unlock unprecedented value. I look forward to partnering with Advent’s talented teams to harness and adopt the full power of AI.”
Sharma was previously the CEO and Co-Founder of InStride, a Los Angeles-based EdTech company. He also served as the Senior Vice President, e-commerce and Digital Guest Experience at The Walt Disney Company; General Manager, Mail and Messenger and Vice President, Search Products at Yahoo; and Associate Partner at McKinsey & Company. He is currently an Adjunct Professor of Data Sciences at the University of Southern California, Member of the Innovation Science and Technology advisory council at Caltech and serves on the boards of JetBlue, Kaiser Permanente and Hexaware Technologies.
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