Peter Pacelli - Three Virtues of Investing

1. Three Virtues of Investing Perpetual Learning Every investment is different. Different sectors, different management teams, different market conditions. Private company investing forces you to stay nimble and innovative. You cannot simply use off-the-shelf templates to manage private equity assets. However, experience working across many different investments with different people and outcomes provides essential data to make good business decisions. Wearing Many Hats Private equity investing combines many business disciplines into one job. MBA students are often required to focus on one area of business. Marketing, operations, finance. Investment professionals who are hands on, working directly with management teams, are required to demonstrate fluency in all subjects. This keeps the job fresh, fun, and challenging. And because an investment professional often has numerous portfolio companies at various stages, there are multiple missions to be executed contemporaneously. Building Relationships Ultimately, private equity investing is a relationship business. Lenders, lawyers, bankers, limited partners, and other advisors all make up the private investor’s ecosystem. And given that building companies is a long game, all these players can play surprising roles in advancing interests over the long term. Nurturing relationships, making introductions, going out of your way for others to provide advice or other information are all important aspects of the role. About Peter: Peter Pacelli is a Principal at Knox Capital, where he focuses on deal sourcing and execution in the business services industry. Prior to Knox, Peter worked at Victory Views, a technology-enabled managed services company serving customers in the education space. Peter was raised in the Chicago area. He graduated from New Trier High School before attending Yale University. After Yale, Peter worked at Bank of America in New York before moving back to Chicago to work at Wind Point Partners, a middle-market private equity firm. Peter holds an MBA from The University of Chicago Booth School of Business and is a veteran of the U.S. Navy.