A few months after taking over as CEO of the $381 billion private equity and alternative investment giant Carlyle Group, former Goldman executive Harvey Schwartz is starting to add some new members to his executive team.
Licia Soares, a resident of Menlo Park, was appointed chief information officer and director of technology transformation by Carlyle today, with immediate effect. The statement comes on the heels of one made just a few weeks prior, which stated that John Redett, head of global financial services, will succeed CFO Curt Buser, who is leaving the company, as CFO and head of corporate strategy this fall.
“I think it’s the beginning of a new chapter for us to look at new opportunities for growth,” Soares, a former Johnson & Johnson vice president who first joined Carlyle in 2019, says of what it’s been like to work under Schwartz these past few months. “It’s been an infusion of new energy and new possibility.”
Soares’ post is not new, but it has been empty for two years since former CIO Michael Haas passed away in June 2021, during which time interim management has been in charge of carrying out the duties.
The previous two years have been devoted to Soares’ work with the management teams of the investment firm’s portfolio, assisting them in using technology—things like automation and data analytics—to boost profits or reduce expenses. Together with Carlyle’s Redett, she previously served on the board of the insurance company Hilb Group, where Soares claims she advised them to consolidate their IT infrastructure, which she claims saved $5 million and later generated $2 million in revenue in the last six months after the business started utilising data analytics.
