Ken Prince joined Advent in 2016 and is a Managing Director in New York. He is Co-Head of the Capital Markets Group, which coordinates new acquisition financings, and works with our portfolio companies on all capital markets activity. Ken is also responsible for managing and helping to grow the firm’s relationships with investment banks, direct lenders, syndicated lenders, and equity investors.
Prior to joining Advent, Ken was a Managing Director at Goldman Sachs in the Leverage Finance Group, where he covered the natural resources and industrial sectors for both corporate and private equity transactions. He previously worked at Bank of America, focusing on high yield exchange offers, restructuring, and refinancing transactions across a variety of sectors.
Ken graduated from the University of Virginia, with a BS in Commerce from the McIntire School of Commerce and a BA in Economics from the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.
What is it like to work with other colleagues at Advent in light of its partnership structure?
The partnership mentality permeates everything we do across geographies and sectors. We share best practices helping to identify and execute transactions, while learning from each other to continuously improve. I’m constantly in contact with colleagues in London, where the rest of our Capital Markets team is based, sharing and leveraging ideas for the benefit of the global partnership, and discussing what we could have done better. At Advent, there’s always a push for excellence, but it’s never at the expense of our ethics or underlying principles. That’s the cornerstone of the partnership.
How do you challenge yourself and others to continuously improve?
The Capital Markets team is typically involved in 30 to 40 transactions a year, across different structures and industries. That gives us a pulse on the market and a real understanding of what best-in-class can look like. Even when we’re deep into a transaction, we’re always thinking about what’s best for the firm more widely, and what lessons we can apply to the next investment.
“At Advent, there’s always a push for excellence, but it’s never at the expense of our ethics or underlying principles. That’s the cornerstone of the partnership.”
Ken Prince
Managing Director, Advent
What about your job inspires and drives you?
There are two things. We’re a flat organization, so the opportunity and ability to be creative and innovative, and to push ideas forward without getting bogged down in bureaucracy is really refreshing. Secondly, because we get to work with all our sector teams, I enjoy getting people to understand the benefits of what we can bring and learning something new from them. That’s something I’ve enjoyed throughout my career at Advent and always look to share with my colleagues.
What did you want to be when you were a kid?
Like many kids, I wanted to be professional athlete, but I’m five foot six and 160 pounds, so that was scarcely in the cards! When I entered university, I imagined myself as a lawyer or politician, having grown up surrounded by that outside Washington, DC. However, I quickly recognized that I’d have greater ability to make an impact within a leaner, flatter organization, and that I enjoyed the faster pace of finance, so I quickly pivoted to that.
