Lori Whelan

BSE from Wharton School and MBA from HBS

Background:

Lori Whelan is Managing Partner & COO and co-founder of Silversmith Capital Partners, a Boston based growth equity firm with $3.3 billion under management that focuses on partnering with and supporting the best entrepreneurs in technology and healthcare. Since starting Silversmith in 2015, Lori has managed finance, operations, and talent management activities for the firm. Most importantly, she focuses on ensuring the firm’s values are operationalized in the day-to-day culture of Silversmith. Lori also currently serves on the Board of Trustees of The Dana Farber Cancer Institute, The Winsor School, and Boston Community Pediatrics. Lori began her career consulting at Bain & Company and then moved into private equity at Berkshire Partners. After receiving her MBA, she returned to Bain, where she worked primarily in the private equity practice, before joining one of her clients, Papa Gino’s, as EVP of Strategy and ultimately CFO.

You launched Silversmith with co-founders, Jeff Crisan, Todd MacLean, and Jim Quagliaroli. What inspired the decision to launch your own fund? Can you tell us a little bit about the experience of starting a fund?

When I had the chance to join Jeff, Todd, and Jim as they were contemplating starting Silversmith, I jumped at the opportunity. Being able to start a firm with what we believe is a very compelling investment strategy, combined with a vision of building a firm that differentiated itself around culture, was exciting to me. Doing that with people that I have known for 20+ years and have a tremendous amount of respect and affection for, was a unique opportunity.

The experience of starting a fund was really a lot of fun. From the beginning, our investment strategy (growth investments in technology and healthcare businesses) has been clearly defined and, while I am admittedly biased, believe it is one of the most attractive segments of the investing landscape. We also believed if we built a firm focused on attracting and retaining the best people, we had the opportunity to create something that was differentiated in the market. We spent a tremendous amount of time as we were starting Silversmith talking about how we wanted to define our culture, our values, and how we were going to crystalize that in the day-to-day.

Those big strategic discussions combined with the everyday tactical elements of doing everything from standing up email and a website, starting to hire people, securing office space, and preparing for the first fund raise made every day different, challenging, and invigorating.

As we look back to working out of a one room office at WeWork, I’m not sure any of us thought that seven years later we would have raised four funds totaling $3.3 billion dollars and invested in over 40 companies. What I do know is we are incredibly proud of, and grateful for, the people who have played a role in our growth – the limited partners that trust us with their capital, the 35+ people that now make up our team, and the talented founders and entrepreneurs we have been fortunate to partner with. 

What do you find most rewarding and most challenging about your current role?

The most rewarding part of my job is simple… it is the people I have the opportunity to work with every day. We all share the common goals of supporting each founder to grow their business and generating great returns for our limited partners. We believe that our team culture can be a competitive advantage in accomplishing these goals, and have been deliberate in establishing a structure that operationalizes the values we want to endure.

We believe culture is made up of big decisions (compensation structure, how investment decisions get made) and more tactical decisions (office layout, team event cadence, deal staffing, hybrid working policies). This is something I focus on every day. It can be challenging at times but is also the most rewarding part of my job.

Ensuring that our team is not only motivated by passion for what they are working on, but who they are working with, is important to us.

You’ve had several different roles throughout your career. What are some skills or lessons learned that help you today?

You can look at my career trajectory as both traditional and non-traditional. Strategic CFO of a pizza operation is not the most likely path to starting a growth equity fund. However, one consistent theme in my career has been to make decisions about where I worked based on the people and team culture of the organization… Bain & Company, Berkshire Partners, Papa Gino’s and founding Silversmith with Todd, Jeff, & Jim all represent that. Taking elements of culture, organization structure, effective decision making from all of those stops and now applying that to how we are building our firm has been invaluable. In addition, functionally, the combination of strategy work at Bain, PE associate work at Berkshire, and the CFO role at Papa Gino’s provided relevant experiences to hopefully help me be an effective COO today.

What advice would you give to young female investors early in their career?

You belong in this business. I talk to many young women that feel intimidated by this industry, especially when working in a predominantly male environment. My advice to them is to be confident in their abilities, be intellectually curious, and work hard… this will enable you to ultimately find your own voice and be impactful.

Anything else that I didn’t touch on that you would like to share or highlight?

There is real value in having mentors who can relate to the challenges and opportunities you may face. I would encourage female investors to make mentorship an integral part of their career growth. Synergist is a great example of this!

Thank you for your time Lori! To learn more about Silversmith check out https://www.silversmith.com/