Jason Karl joined Advent in 2010 and is a Managing Director in New York. He advises on investments in the industrials sector. Jason originally joined Advent as an Associate in Boston, where he focused on industrial buyout investments, and rejoined the firm in New York after business school.
Prior to joining Advent, Jason was an Associate Consultant at the Boston Consulting Group, where he worked on strategic projects with Fortune 500 companies in a variety of industries.
Jason has an MBA, with distinction, from Harvard Business School and received a BA from Yale University.
What sub-sectors do you currently find interesting, and why?
I spend a lot of time focusing on people-based businesses, particularly distribution and services. In these distributed businesses, it’s quite difficult to coordinate across thousands of team members, and that is what sets apart the best companies in the space. It is hard work to attract and retain top talent. At Advent, we are piloting broad-based ownership in a few of our portfolio companies via Ownership Works, where every employee now owns a part of the business. We hope that this is a powerful tool for our management teams and will have a positive effect in terms of safety, retention, engagement, and productivity.
How has Advent supported your professional growth?
At Advent we have this tremendous brand and culture, with an entrepreneurial spirit that I think is rare within our industry. Since I joined in 2010, I’ve been a huge beneficiary of that. I’ve had this tremendous opportunity to expand my focus across sub-sectors within industrials. While I started with chemicals and materials, I’ve had a chance to add packaging, building products, and distribution and services – which has been fantastic for my development.
“The most gratifying part of my job is interacting with and learning from a really talented group of people.”
Andrew Li
Managing Director, Advent
How do you continue to challenge yourself and others to improve at work?
Continuous improvement is part of Advent’s DNA. It has been instilled in me over the 15 years I’ve been at Advent. In that time the industry has gotten more competitive, and we need to keep getting better across all aspects of what we do every day – from identifying potential opportunities and evaluating businesses to developing relationships with executives. But that’s part of what makes it so rewarding. If this job were just ‘rinse and repeat,’ doing the same thing over and over again, I don’t think it would be much fun.
What are the highlights of your work at Advent?
By far the most gratifying part of my job is interacting with and learning from a really talented group of people. The CEOs of our portfolio companies lead thousands of people every day to build something special. It’s such a privilege to work together to support businesses in their next phase of growth.
Can you think of anyone you’d like to swap places with for a day?
I would go with [baseball player and executive] Derek Jeter. I read his book a few years ago. There are some people who simply make their teams better. You don’t necessarily have to be the most naturally gifted player. Derek Jeter was never the best home-run hitter, but he had that leadership quality. That’s something I really admire: to be the best teammate that I can, to make the people and companies I work with as successful as possible. Our business is a team sport.
