3/21 | Nishita Cummings - Kayne Partners

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Synergist Senior Sound Bites - March 2021:

Nishita Cummings

Managing Partner, Co-Head of Growth Equity, Kayne Partners
B.S. in Economics from the Wharton School and a B.S. in Biomedical Sciences from the School of Engineering at the University of Pennsylvania

Background

Nishita Cummings is a Managing Partner and Co-Head of Growth Equity at Kayne Partners, the growth equity arm of Kayne Anderson Capital Advisors, a $32B alternative asset management firm based in Los Angeles. Nishita is responsible for playing a pro-active leadership role in identifying investment themes, developing actionable new investment opportunities, executing on investments, and creating value within existing portfolio companies. This has resulted in Nishita leading over 40 platform investments and exits during her tenure at the firm.

Nishita joined Kayne Partners in 2007 and focuses her time on the B2B software and tech-enabled service sectors. She currently serves on the boards of businesses such as Circle Cardiovascular, CreatorIQ, Feightwaves, Riviera Partners, among others.

Nishita has been recognized as a top growth investor and woman in private equity by a variety of publications including the WSJ’s Private Equity’s 14 Most Influential Women of Today and Tomorrow, GrowthCap’s 40 under 40 Growth Investors list, and The Deal’s Top Female Veteran Dealmakers. Nishita received a Bachelor of Science in Economics from the Wharton School and a Bachelor of Science in Biomedical Sciences from the School of Engineering at the University of Pennsylvania.

Could you share your background with us, and specifically, your path from joining Kayne Anderson as an associate to now being one of the managing partners and co-heads of the growth equity team?

Prior to joining Kayne I explored different careers in finance, from banking to consulting, to a value-oriented hedge fund and the United Nations Capital Development Fund in Guatemala. These all gave me a different view into what I liked and disliked, and from these experiences I realized that I wanted to pursue a career that would enable me to merge my love for investing with my love for technology. I joined Kayne as an associate, and worked my way all the way up - there were no shortcuts. In hindsight I am fortunate to have taken this path to leadership; I have done all the jobs there are to do here, so I can be both empathetic, critical, and supportive of my team. As the youngest and first female partner at the firm, my work is never done, and the role continues to change and evolve. While I have been in “the same job” for 14 years, I have had many jobs: I started with cold calling and sourcing, then investing, then managing, and now I run a business. Each stage has had its own set of unique challenges, which have in turn been opportunities to further develop my skill set.

Looking back, what would you say are some of the key factors to your success? What were some major challenges?

As a woman, being better at your job than your peers is not enough to truly thrive. Hard work and perseverance are table stakes, and beyond that I have needed to stay relentlessly curious and creative in my approach. I also invested the time to cultivate mentors and advocates that helped me develop faster than I would have on my own, and to help open doors that I could not open on my own. Even with all that, I still had to challenge the status quo, and take risks to further my advancement. In short, I had to “be so good that they could not ignore me”.

How did you decide to pursue an investing role originally, and what continues to make you excited about investing today?

I was very fortunate to have had the opportunity to explore a variety of different careers before landing on growth private equity. Investing and private equity in particular was the perfect fit for me because it combined several elements: technical and quantitative skills, working alongside entrepreneurs and management teams, problem solving, and ultimately putting skin in the game. For better or worse it is very easy to evaluate investing acumen – the scoreboard is there for everyone to see, but the game keeps changing. As the landscape of technologies, companies, capital sources, and other investors continues to evolve you need to be facile in all of these arenas to excel as an investor, which makes it very challenging, but also very rewarding.

What has been the most surprising learning from going from a junior or mid-level investor, to leading the strategy of the growth equity team at Kayne as managing partner?

In short, great investors do not necessarily translate into great managers or great leaders. It is really hard to think about working tirelessly to become an excellent investor, only to discover the next rung of the ladder - becoming a manager - demands a totally different skill set that is just as challenging to master. Same is true for the next level - just as soon as you become comfortable being a people leader, you now need to run a business. You need to think about fundraising, recruiting, training, compliance, operations, reporting, and ultimately where you see the fund going in the next ten to twenty years. Amidst all that, you still need to deliver outsized returns, because that is the business you are in.

I have personally traveled this journey, and now have the additional job of helping to identify, train, and cultivate the next generation of talent. In this I have often been reminded that “past performance is no guarantee of future results.”

I know you have two adorable sons at home – how do you balance personal life with a demanding job?

Well I have the support of an amazing partner in my life…my nanny. I am also very fortunate to have a very supportive partner in my husband, Mike. This job is super demanding and I am seldom not thinking about some aspect of my work. It is also dynamic and unpredictable; I am often playing the role of therapist to my CEOs, and they do not only call between 9am and 5pm. To that end, my support system is critical and it affords me the flexibility I need. Conversely, it’s also important to partition my life, and each evening I try and have a cut-off so I can focus on my boys and our family. For me it comes down to balance and setting yourself up for success in the right environment.

From an industry standpoint, what do you think would be the most meaningful way to improve diversity and inclusion (of all kinds) in investing?

Just as there was no shortcut for me to get here, there is no shortcut for improving DEI within the investor community. It starts with courage - the courage to force the conversation in the boardroom, in your company, and in your team all of which can be very tough conversations to have with your colleagues, employees, and often your friends. From there, it takes a concerted effort - goal setting. These cannot be ambiguous, lofty, ill-defined goals. Make the goals specific, actionable, and impactful, and hold yourself and your team accountable to them. From there you need to drive adoption and focus throughout the organization. Consistency is key - there can be no half measures. We now hold our portfolio companies to the same DEI standards that we do ourselves. The only way to change human behavior is focus, repetition, and consistency, and we live that.

For a fun question, though travel is still on pause, for inspiration, where would you love to go on your next trip or vacation?

Definitely the French Riviera. While in general we have a policy of not repeating our trips, post-Covid I do not necessarily want to experiment with where we are going and would like to go back to a favorite place of ours. The food, the people, the landscapes - it is truly tough to beat.

Thank you so much for your time today, Nishita. As a closing question, is there any advice you would give to other women who are pursuing careers in investing?

It’s important to know that there is no one path to becoming a great investor. If you want to be an investor, figure out what you are truly excellent at, and then figure out how that translates to the world of investing. That said, I would always recommend building foundational skills and exposing yourself to as many different investment approaches, processes, and investors as you can. As you continue down the path, do not forget that there is always more to learn, and no matter how much we do know there is always going to be a lot more that we do not know. Lastly, every investment is unique - treat them accordingly.

The Kayne Partners team is currently hiring extraordinary women to join the Growth Private Equity Team. For more information about Kayne Partners, click here, or reach out to Nishita at ncummings@kaynecapital.com to learn more.