Name: Lawrence Calcano
Title: Chairman and CEO
Company: iCapital
Website: www.icapital.com
Founded: 2013
Headquarters: New York, NY
Description: iCapital is powering the world’s alternative investment marketplace offering a complete suite of tools, end-to-end enterprise solutions, and an innovative operating system.
Lawrence Calcano: Pioneering the Future of Private Market Investments at iCapital
As chairman, CEO, and board member, Lawrence Calcano has a proven track record of combining talent, technology, and tenacity to transform financial services companies and their industry sectors. With more than 35 years of experience in finance and a focus on collaborative, innovative thinking, it’s no wonder he is recognized as one of the Top Fintech CEOs of 2024.
Over the past 12 years, Lawrence has helped guide and evolve iCapital from its inception to its current position as one of the industry’s leading enterprise technology platforms for investing in private markets. The company offers a complete suite of investment and portfolio construction tools, data management and distribution capabilities, and an innovative operating system to help advisors manage these complex investments. Under Calcano’s leadership, iCapital surpassed $200 billion in global platform assets earlier this year. This milestone reflects the company’s commitment to helping its partners and clients learn about, invest in, and manage the entire lifecycle of alternative investments, structured investments, and annuities.
As of October 31, 2024, iCapital supports over 1,680 funds from 617 fund managers and issuers, partners with more than 2,675 wealth managers, and supports a global network of more than 106,000 financial professionals. As the trusted technology partner to financial advisors, wealth managers, asset managers, and other participants in the ecosystem, iCapital’s growth has been driven by advisors’ increased global demand for high-quality private market funds.
At the forefront of the digital transformation in alternative investing, iCapital’s secure platform delivers a complete portfolio of management capabilities for education, transactions, data flows, analytics, and client support throughout the investment lifecycle of investing in alternative assets, structured investments, and annuities. In addition to delivering award-winning services to clients, Calcano is also deeply passionate about community efforts to improve mental health and wellness. The CEO has served as a director of Vibrant Emotional Health (formerly the Mental Health Association of New York City) for over 10 years.
In an interview, he speaks on an array of topics. Excerpts:
Identifying Problems. Offering Solutions.
After graduating with an MBA from Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business, Lawrence joined Goldman Sachs, where he spent 17 years – ultimately co-heading the firm’s Global Technology Banking Group. There, he gained valuable insights into the challenges many advisors and financial professionals faced when managing and reporting on alternative investments, particularly during his work in the private equity, hedge fund, venture capital, and M&A spaces.
“I recognized a need for innovation in the alternative investment space, which made the opportunity to join the iCapital team back in 2013 a very exciting one. I wanted to help drive real change for all market participants by simplifying the private market investment experience.”
Today, iCapital’s flexible, modular end-to-end technology suite simplifies the historically complex task of managing alternative investments, structured investments, and annuities. With iCapital’s solutions, advisors and their clients gain the confidence to seamlessly engage with and navigate the private markets, ensuring a reliable and more efficient investment experience better aligned with individual financial goals. By streamlining data protocols, automating reporting processes, and improving the overall client experience, advisors worldwide can boost their productivity and spend more time interfacing with their clients instead of manually reconciling data.
“Education is crucial in the early adoption phase of alternative investments as it empowers advisors and their clients to make more informed decisions that help them fully leverage the benefits of portfolio diversification and enhanced performance,” Calcano says.
Investing in the Future of Alternative Investments
iCapital’s milestone of over $200 billion in global platform assets reflects how deeply the company has earned the trust and support of its clients. But with that milestone in the rearview mirror, what’s next for the company in its relentless pursuit to serve clients and revolutionize the private markets?
“Serving leading asset and wealth managers is a privilege, and we’re excited to continue delivering exceptional value for our partners in 2025 and beyond,” says Calcano. He notes that the company has already made significant investments in its technology stack and product roadmap, developments that many iCapital partners are already feeling the benefits of.
By the end of 2024, iCapital will have invested over $600 million in its technology and tools, driving innovation in model portfolios, reporting solutions, and distributed ledger technology (DLT). Recent advancements also include Architect, which allows advisors to more easily analyze and integrate alternatives and structured investments into the portfolios of their clients, and iCapital’s most recent acquisition of leading AI-driven technology firm AltExchange, whose capabilities will help iCapital’s clients collect, extract, and organize their data more efficiently and cost-effectively.
“iCapital is honored to help more financial advisors than ever grow their businesses with our technology and end-to-end operating platform,” says Calcano. “Our customers are and will continue to be the cornerstone of everything we do. Together, we have surpassed this $200B milestone, and together we will innovate and transform the alternatives investing experience to create opportunities for the long-term successful outcomes that financial advisors seek for their clients.”