Carmine Petrone joined Advent in 2010 and is a Managing Director in Boston. He advises on investments in the healthcare and healthcare technology sectors. Carmine has advised on 15 investments during his career, 12 while at Advent.
Prior to joining Advent, Carmine worked for Thomas H. Lee Partners, where he was a generalist investor with a focus on leveraged buyouts in the financial and business services and healthcare industries. He also worked on the start-up of their credit and public equities strategies. Carmine began his career in investment banking with Citigroup Global Markets, where he was a member of the Global Health Care team.
Carmine has a BA from Johns Hopkins University and an MBA from Harvard Business School. He is a trustee of Johns Hopkins University.
What sub-sectors of healthcare particularly interest you at the moment?
More patients need to access care at a better value – Advent thinks we can help the healthcare system with that challenge and, fortunately, there are many places to look. It starts with the premise you can’t keep asking providers to do more with less – there have to be productivity breakthroughs leveraging technology. So, we spend a lot of time in both payor and provider tech, looking for software tools we can scale that bring down administrative complexity, increase efficiency, and generate more surplus to expand patient care. Best in class outsourced service providers that can help drive efficiency through process and technology around non-core and/or highly specialized activities are another place we look for opportunities. For example, Advent has done quite a bit of investing in outsourced services to the life sciences industry, enabling them to bring products to patients faster and cheaper through research, manufacturing and commercialization support.
How important are Operating Partners and the Portfolio Support Group (PSG) to your work?
The deal team, PSG, and Operating Partners (Ops) are like members of an orchestra playing together – or perhaps a highly coordinated assembly line, where skilled craftsmen come in as needed, to contribute something critical to the ultimate achievement of the value creation plan crafted for that investment. What Advent aims to deliver is that value creation plan, and the OPs and PSG are essential. It starts during diligence: we’ll all sit in a room together and reflect on what we have learned and where we can partner with management to go faster and deliver a differentiated outcome. Once Advent has reached agreement to invest, the show begins and we’re all actively working with management to hone the vision, break it into phases and then prioritize the who/what/when/how. PSG and the Operating Partners are helping us to see around corners, sequence that work properly, and ultimately enable management to transform or accelerate growth of their business and achieve our collective value creation plan.
How do you challenge yourself to continuously improve at Advent?
I’m always looking at the scoreboards – how are Advent’s management teams and our investment team doing. If we’ve partnered with talented management, we’ve provided them whatever resources could be helpful and allowed them to invest in the necessary infrastructure, then I want to see if the score reflects the quality of the team and the effort. Did we launch the product on time, did we hit our revenue and margin targets, what is our NPS, what is employee satisfaction? Hopefully that’s reflected in the scores. Same applies to our investment team – are we building a differentiated point of view and a relationship with a management team that leads to a productive partnership that we can invest behind? If yes, then the scoreboard should indicate capital deployment and compounding. But that doesn’t always happen, and talent’s the hardest part of it and where I push myself to improve, and I want to remain in lockstep with our management teams on how we’re grading our collective progress.
“In healthcare, it comes down to more and positive patient outcomes. There’s a patient associated with every business model Advent is investing behind… there is nothing more rewarding than that.”
Carmine Petrone
Managing Director, Advent
What drives and inspires you about your work?
In healthcare, it comes down to more and positive patient outcomes. There’s a patient associated with every business model Advent is investing behind. So, if we can invest in software assets, care delivery platforms, leading outsourced service models, products and therapeutics that ultimately allow more patients to be treated because we can improve quality, access, efficiency, clinician experience – there is nothing more rewarding than that.
How do you keep yourself busy outside of work?
I love traveling with my family. I’ve got two boys and a little girl, and it’s always rewarding – and tiring – to blow off some steam with them and mom, doing outdoor activities and cooking up plans where she might ask if I’m crazy. I also spend a lot of time with nonprofits and charitable organizations focused on healthcare and education. I’m a trustee of Johns Hopkins, a leading research university and affiliated health system. World changing research goes on there, which is critical to a healthy and sustaining world, and which I wouldn’t otherwise see in my everyday life.
