Synergist Senior Sound Bites - August 2021:

Renee Noto

Partner and President, Brightstar Capital Partners

B.A. Economics from Dartmouth, M.B.A. from Harvard Business School

You have had a unique path to your current role in PE as President of Brightstar Capital Partners.  Can you share a little bit of your background?

I was investing in public stocks as a teenager.  My dad encouraged me to do so.  I was fortunate to get a job out of college with legendary money manager Peter Lynch.  I spent the first 20 years of my career as a public market investor, including co-founding a successful hedge fund and then running my own fund of funds.  After the financial crisis of the late 2000s, I anticipated that the economics for fund of funds would change and unwound my business. I gradually moved to the private investing side and was involved in several firms before teaming up with Brightstar’s Founder and CEO Andrew Weinberg.

For background, Brightstar is a middle market private equity firm.  We partner with families, founders, and entrepreneurs where we believe both our capital and expertise can make a difference.  We invest only when we are confident that our team can add value through operational and strategic know how.  We are very hands on, spending lots of time with our portfolio companies.

You joined Brightstar back in 2015 – right when it was being founded. How did you think about joining a new fund? 

I got to know Andrew Weinberg while we were both spending a lot of time building our own networks of family business owners.  When Andrew decided to start his own firm, I jumped at the chance to work with him because we shared the same values and vision.  Obviously, investing acumen and strategy are important.  But in the end, when I think about my successes and missteps in my career, the successes are directly attributable to working with people who share those essential, big picture elements.   The first 6 years of our partnership have been rewarding and fun and we are excited about what’s to come.

Congratulations on the recent capital raise closing (Brightstar just raised its second fund, featuring commitments of $1.27B). How, if at all differently, did you and your team approach this vs. the initial capital raise? Was it even more challenging doing this in a pandemic world?

In my long experience, fund raising is never easy.  The Fund II raise was marginally easier than the raise for Fund I. But COVID certainly complicated it and forced us to be in the market longer. We were able to successfully pivot mid-fundraise to a fully virtual world, which was a major shift for both us and our LPs.  Also, we were focused on expanding our LP base in Fund II even with a strong re-up from our existing base.  We believe having the right investor base is crucial to our long-term success and were dedicated to making sure we achieved that.


You have worn a number of hats in the investing world – business development, hedge fund investor, and now Partner and President of Brightstar. What skills have you found most useful across all of these roles?

Strong investment experience is certainly required, but relationship building and managing people are the two important skills that I have focused on building over the years.  In my day-to-day job, I spend most of my time managing relationships and people.  As President of Brightstar, one of my key focus areas is developing our mid-level team members’ skills. We spend a lot of time and resources helping them learn how to give and take feedback, prioritize and organize team workstreams, as well as effectively work with portfolio management teams.


Do you mind sharing any helpful advice you received early on in your career?

Best advice I ever received was to make sure to have mentors and champions.  I was told early on by a mentor to create my own personal board of directors who can advise on both professional and personal matters.  Mentors should be inside and outside your firm.  Mentors within you firm can be instrumental in championing your progress and making sure you are positioned to succeed.  Mentors outside your firm can give perspective and other important industry advise.  Too often I see people, especially women, with no mentors.  In our competitive environment, you need a team to help you achieve your goals.

One other piece of advice, especially if you do not plan to go to business school: actively develop your professional network.  Spend 10% of your work time on this.  You should be getting to know colleagues at other firms and other industries.  Most likely your next great opportunity will come from someone who is willing to connect you to people they know.

You are currently a director of the Gateway Dealer Network – do you mind sharing a little bit about your experience as a director? How do you think about adding value in this role?

GDN is one of our portfolio companies.  It is the 2nd largest dealership network in the country selling and providing parts and service for Bobcat (and other) equipment. As I mentioned, we are hands on investors, so my board position is not simply a four-board meeting a year engagement.  Along with the rest of our deal team, I am in contact with our management team on a weekly basis.  My role is to support management in strategy and execution. We also try to add value by sharing best practices, when applicable, from other companies in our portfolio.


Is there anything particularly important that you think women should do early on in their careers? Any general advice for women beginning their investing careers?

I’ve talked a lot about building networks, relationships and mentors. One way to do that is to find a way to have shared experiences with others.  For me, that is golf. I picked up golf after business school (read:  it’s never too late to learn).  Golf gives me an opportunity to be with colleagues, employees, investors, and business owners for 4-5 hours in a relaxed atmosphere where we can have meaningful conversations.  It allows me to build trust outside the office environment.  You need to find some activity that allows you to do that.  Golf isn’t for everybody, but if you are interested, take lessons, and get out there.

Thank you for your time, Renee! To learn more about Brightstar Capital Partners check out http://brightstarcp.com/