7:30-8:30 AM 
Robert B. Rowling Hall (RRH), Main Atrium

Registration & Breakfast

8:30-9:00 AM
Robert B. Rowling Hall (RRH) Crum Auditorium

Welcome & Opening Remarks

9:00-10:15 AM
Robert B. Rowling Hall (RRH) Crum Auditorium

Panel 1:  Managing Private Capital Funds Changes in Technology, Government Policy, and Market Volatility

Private Equity fundraising, deal, and exit activity declined materially since the beginning in 2022 after the Federal Reserve began increasing interest rates. Fundraising efforts, deal flow, and exit activity diminished material. As a result, providing liquidity to LPs has become a focus for GPs as evidenced by the increase in secondary offering and continuation funds. By the end of last year, exit activity began to increase from $284 billion in 2023 to $582 billion for TTM 2025 Q3. The industry still, however, confronts increased capital costs, elevated geopolitical uncertainty, higher returns from publicly traded assets, and reduced LP allocations to private capital. Despite these challenges US PE Funds have more than $1 trillion in dry powder to deploy. This panel will address private capital investments vehicles, liquidity, pricing, fees, fundraising, asset allocation, exits, and other fund strategies in a dynamic economic environment.

Panelists:

David Ferdman, Partner & President at Primary Digital Infrastructure
Yup Kim, CIO, Texas Municipal Retirement Systems (TMRS)
Marissa Tarleton, Senior Managing Director, Haveli Investments

10:15-10:45 AM
Robert B. Rowling Hall (RRH), Main Atrium

Break

10:45-11:30 AM
Robert B. Rowling Hall (RRH), Crum Auditorium

Panel 2: Driving Operational Excellence and Value Creation in Portfolio Companies

Description: Portfolio companies confront many of the same constraints and challenges as the funds that support them. Capital costs may be declining but longer holding periods are exerting downward pressure on returns.  Driving operating results has become the principal return driver, in a dynamic private investment market that is also affecting by changes in government regulation and oversight, consumer preferences, and technology. The technology landscape continues to change with AI becoming an increasing focus of corporate managers. This panel will address the management of companies under dynamic market conditions, the search for value creation and growth, technology integration, and emerging market opportunities.

Panelists:

George Ackert, Senior Managing Director, Investment Banking, Evercore
Heather Brunner, CEO & Chairwoman, WP Engine
Matt Bryce, Managing Director, Private Equity Performance Improvement, Alvarez & Marsal
David Rosenberg, Head of Liquid Performing Credit and Co-Portfolio Manager, Oaktree Capital Management

12:15-1:30 PM
AT&T Hotel & Conference Center, Zlotnik Ballroom

Keynote Presentation & Lunch

1:45-3:00 PM
AT&T Hotel & Conference Center

Afternoon Social

James Lee, Chairman, Founder & CEO at Texas Stock Exchange (TXSE) Group

Backed by many of the world’s largest financial institutions and liquidity providers and CEOs from across the country, the Texas Stock Exchange is focused on enabling U.S. and global companies to access U.S. capital markets and aims to become the premier venue to list and trade public companies and the growing universe of exchange-traded products. The Texas Stock Exchange is a SEC-registered, fully integrated, electronic, national securities exchange headquartered in Dallas, Texas.

Oculon Intelligence is a security-first, AI-native software-as-a-service market intelligence platform that combines regulatory reporting insights, execution analytics, and market surveillance across equities and options. Oculon Intelligence is a division of TXSE Group Inc, operating independently from the Texas Stock Exchange.

Jim has over 30 years of experience in U.S. equity markets, alternative investments and governance of large public retirement systems and endowments. Previously, Jim co-founded trading technology companies that developed early smart order routing technologies to connect investors and U.S. equity markets as well as an electronic trading brokerage that regularly transacted a large percentage of U.S. equity volume. He began his career working in mergers and acquisitions at Lehman Brothers and First Boston.

Jim serves as the president of the Houston Symphony Endowment board, member of the Dallas Economic Forum, board member of the Dallas Regional Chamber, member of the Dallas Citizens Council, and member of the Texas Business Leadership Council. Previously, he was chairman of the board of trustees of the Teacher Retirement System of Texas and commissioner on the Texas Parks & Wildlife Commission, Texas Sunset Commission, Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board, Texas Finance Commission, and Texas Growth Fund.

Jim holds an MBA and a BBA from the University of Texas McCombs School of Business, where he established the Wall Street for McCombs permanent endowment for undergraduate and graduate WSFM student leaders. He is also a graduate of the London Business School’s programmes in finance/hedge funds. He was named E&Y Entrepreneur of the Year and held several FINRA certifications.

George Ackert

George Ackert is a senior managing director and co-head of the Financial Sponsors Group at Evercore, where he is an internationally recognized advisor within the transportation sector. His select assignments include advising Canadian Pacific Railway on its acquisition of Kansas City Southern, Qualcomm on its acquisition of Veoneer, Apollo-led consortium on the take-private of Atlas Air Worldwide, Burlington Northern Santa Fe on its sale to Berkshire Hathaway, and Virgin America on its sale to Alaska Airlines. Previously, he served as global head of transportation and infrastructure at Bank of America Merrill Lynch and began his career as an associate attorney at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom. He is the former chairman of the advisory board of the McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas at Austin and holds a J.D. with honors from the University of Texas School of Law, an MBA from Baylor University, and a B.B.A. with high honors from the University of Texas at Austin.

Heather Brunner

Heather Brunner is Chairwoman and CEO of WP Engine, the WordPress technology company that powers more than 1.8 million sites across 150 countries. Since joining WP Engine in 2013, she has led the company’s expansion from an Austin start-up to a global brand with over 1,200 team members worldwide. Prior to WP Engine, she served as Chief Operating Officer at Bazaarvoice and held leadership roles at Nuvo Network Management, Trilogy, Coremetrics, Oracle, and Accenture over her 30-year career in technology. Heather has been recognized with the EY Entrepreneur of the Year award for Central Texas, the Austin Business Journal Best CEO award, and the Great Place to Work CEO Leadership for All award, and serves on the board of directors for Camden Property Trust (NYSE: CPT) and The University of Texas at Austin President’s Innovation Board. She holds a bachelor’s degree in International Economics from Trinity University.

Matt Bryce

Matt Bryce is a Managing Director with Alvarez & Marsal’s Private Equity Performance Improvement in San Antonio, where he specializes in the leadership and management of strategic, transformational, and mission-critical initiatives for private equity investors and their portfolio companies. With more than 20 years of technology and consulting experience across industries including technology, retail, and manufacturing, he has led engagements focused on pre-acquisition due diligence, performance improvement, and post-merger integration. Prior to joining A&M, he served as Vice President of Technology Services at Engauge Marketing, held IT management and software development roles at several Austin start-ups including Winternals Software (acquired by Microsoft) and Smart Technologies (acquired by I2), and started his career with Accenture. Mr. Bryce earned a bachelor’s degree in computer science and an MBA from the McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas at Austin and is a PMI-certified Project Management Professional (PMP) with an ITIL Foundation Certificate in IT Service Management.

David Ferdman

David Ferdman is Managing Partner of DTB Capital Partners, a Texas-based private investment firm, and serves on the board of CyrusOne, which he co-founded in 2000. He served as President and CEO until 2011, returned as CEO in 2021, and in 2022 completed a take-private transaction selling the company to a consortium led by KKR and Global Infrastructure Partners for $15 billion, the largest data center transaction ever closed. He currently serves on the boards of Filmwerks International, Circuit of the Americas, and Skout Organic, and previously co-founded and sold Network Long Distance (NASDAQ: NTWK) to IXC Communications in 1998. Mr. Ferdman holds a B.S. in Business Administration from the University of Kansas.

Yup Kim

Yup S. Kim serves as CIO for TMRS and chairs its investment committee. Previously, he served as head of investments for private equity at CalPERS, California’s $490 billion pension fund, where he led the private equity program across primary, secondary, and co-investment opportunities globally, and as senior portfolio manager at the Alaska Permanent Fund Corporation, an $80 billion sovereign wealth fund, where he helped lead private investment activities that generated 25% net returns over a decade. He has also held positions at DB Private Equity, Performance Equity, Silver Point Capital, and Citigroup. Yup received his B.A. in economics from Yale University, speaks six languages, chairs the Milken Institute Rising Allocator forum, and serves as a board member of the Korea Finance Society, a term member for the Council of Foreign Relations, and a visiting lecturer at Harvard Business School, The Wharton School, and Yale University.

David Rosenberg

David Rosenberg serves as Oaktree’s Head of Liquid Performing Credit and co-portfolio manager of the U.S. High Yield Bond, Global High Yield Bond, Global Credit Investment Grade, and Global Credit strategies, and is a founding member of the Global Credit Investment Committee. He joined Oaktree in 2004 following graduation from the University of Southern California with an M.B.A. in business administration and previously served as an associate in the Franchise Systems Finance group at J.P. Morgan. Mr. Rosenberg holds an M.P.A. in professional accounting with a concentration in finance and a B.A. degree in business administration from the University of Texas at Austin and is a Certified Public Accountant (inactive).

Marissa Tarleton

Marissa Tarleton is a Senior Managing Director at Haveli Investments, where she focuses on investment decisions and value creation with the firm’s software portfolio companies. Prior to joining Haveli in 2022, she served as President of Aceable and CEO of both RxSaver by RetailMeNot and RetailMeNot, Inc., where she led a global marketplace connecting over 700 million consumers annually and was recognized with the Forbes 2018 CMO Next Award for data-driven marketing thought leadership. She spent 13 years at Dell in progressively senior marketing roles, including NA Marketing Vice President and Global Advertising Vice President, and began her career in advertising at Ogilvy & Mather and Foote, Cone & Belding. Marissa holds an MBA from the Texas McCombs School of Business and a BA in Political Science and Asian Studies from Colgate University.

2025

8:00-8:30 am
Registration & Breakfast

8:30-9:00 am
Welcome: Ken Wiles, Executive Director, Hicks, Muse, Tate & Furst Center for Private Equity Finance, McCombs School of Business
Speaker: Lillian Mills, Dean, McCombs School of Business

9:00-10:15 am
Panel 1: Managing Private Capital Funds During Technological, Economic & Regulatory Uncertainty
Private Equity fundraising, deal, and exit activity have declined materially since the beginning in 2022 after the Federal Reserve began increasing interest rates. US PE exits in 2021, for example, totaled approximately $841 billion and declined to $302 billion in 2022, $277 billion in 2023, and $417 billion in 2024. As a result, providing liquidity to LPs has become a focus for GPs as evidenced by the increase in secondary offering and continuation funds. Market dynamics continue to change as the Fed begins to pursue a more accommodative monetary policy and a new federal administration modifies regulatory oversight. The industry still confronts increased capital costs, elevated geopolitical uncertainty, higher returns from publicly traded assets, private credit, and changing investor preferences. Despite these challenges US PE Funds have more than $900 billion of dry powder to deploy. This panel will address private capital investments vehicles, liquidity, pricing, fees, fundraising, asset allocation, exits, and other fund strategies in a dynamic economic environment. Moderator: Matt Lyons, Wilson Sonsini

Panelists:
Chirag Shah (Moderator), Managing Director, Campbell Lutyens
Miguel Espinosa, Managing Director, Nomura Securities
David Fox, Partner, Co-Head of Sage Fund, Leonard Green & Partners
Eric Lang, Senior Managing Director, Teacher Retirement System of Texas
Anthony Tutrone, Managing Director, Neuberger Berman

10:15-10:45 am
Break

10:45 am – 12:00 pm
Panel 2: Driving Portfolio Company Values and Returns in Challenging Markets
Economic uncertainly affects the companies in which PE firms invest. The cost of capital has increased, sources of capital are changing, deal terms are more investor friendly, exit opportunities have diminished, valuations have declined, consumer and business spending has begun to soften, and investor risk preferences are changing. This panel will address the management of companies under uncertain market conditions, value creation, restructuring and turnaround strategies, and emerging investment opportunities.

Panelists:
Brian Hegi (Moderator), Co-Founder and Managing Partner, Crossplane Capital
Craig Bondy, Senior Advisor, GTCR
Hilary Fleischer, Managing Director, Strattam Capital
Shawn O’Neill, Senior Advisor, SilverLake
David Strassner, Managing Director, Swan & Legend

12:00-12:30 pm
Break

12:30-1:45 pm
Lunch and Fireside Chat: Joe Lonsdale, Founder and Managing Partner, 8VC
Introduction of HMTF Scholarship Recipients: Jonathan Cohn, Academic Director, HMTF Private Equity Center, McCombs School of Business

1:45-3:00 pm
Networking Reception