A Private Equity Career Path From Salomon Brothers to GTCR

Career paths in private equity rarely follow straight lines. Many investors work at investment banks, then join private equity firms, then perhaps start their own firms. Each step provides different skills and perspectives.

Reeve B. Waud’s career followed this pattern. He worked at Salomon Brothers, joined GTCR, and eventually founded Waud Capital Partners. Each role contributed to the investment approach he would later employ.

Early Years: Salomon Brothers Venture Capital Group

Salomon Brothers, one of Wall Street’s prominent investment banks, had a corporate finance group where Reeve B. Waud began his career. Corporate finance exposed him to how companies raise capital, structure transactions, and evaluate strategic alternatives.

While at Salomon Brothers, Reeve B. Waud became a founding member of the firm’s venture capital group. This early-stage investing experience differed from later-stage buyouts but taught lessons about company formation, management team evaluation, and growth capital deployment.

Venture capital typically involves minority investments in high-growth companies. Returns come from company appreciation rather than operational improvements or leverage. This model contrasts with the control buyouts Waud Capital would later pursue, but the experience in evaluating management teams and growth opportunities proved transferable.

GTCR Experience: Learning Through Acquisitions

After Salomon Brothers, Reeve B. Waud joined Golder, Thoma, Cressey, Rauner, Inc. (GTCR), a Chicago-based private equity firm. GTCR specialized in growth buyouts—control investments in established companies with expansion potential.

At GTCR, Reeve B. Waud gained hands-on experience building companies through acquisitions. Some portfolio companies were constructed through more than 30 separate transactions. This buy-and-build approach—acquiring a platform company, then adding complementary businesses—became central to his later investment strategy.

Portfolio companies during his GTCR tenure included businesses across multiple sectors. This exposure to different industries helped develop pattern recognition: identifying which business characteristics enable successful consolidation and which create integration challenges.

The GTCR experience also demonstrated the importance of operational expertise. Completing 30 acquisitions for a single portfolio company requires not just capital but also integration capabilities, systems standardization, and cultural alignment. These lessons would inform how Waud Capital later structured its “Ecosystem” of operating partners.

Striking Out Independently at 29

In 1993, at age 29, Reeve B. Waud founded Waud Capital Partners. The firm began as a self-funded, one-person operation in Lake Forest, Illinois. Initial investments came from his own capital rather than institutional investors.

Starting independently meant forgoing the infrastructure, deal flow, and brand recognition of established firms. However, it provided complete control over investment decisions, portfolio company involvement, and firm culture.

Reeve B. Waud holds a BA in Economics from Middlebury College and an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. These educational credentials complemented his work experience at Salomon Brothers and GTCR.

The firm raised its first institutional fund in 1998, five years after founding. By then, Reeve B. Waud had established a track record demonstrating his ability to identify opportunities, complete transactions, and generate returns.

Thirty-two years after founding, Waud Capital Partners manages approximately $4.6 billion in assets and employs roughly 70 professionals.. The firm has completed more than 460 investments across healthcare and software sectors.Reeve B. Waud has led or overseen more than 500 company acquisitions throughout his career. This acquisition experience, developed at GTCR and expanded at Waud Capital, distinguishes the firm’s approach. Rather than occasional add-on acquisitions, Waud Capital pursues systematic buy-and-build strategies averaging 10 or more add-ons per healthcare platform.