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Leon Chen Named to GrowthCap’s Top 40 Under 40 Growth Investors of 2021
January 4, 2022
LOS ANGELES, CA, January 3, 2022 – Kayne Partners, the Los Angeles-based dedicated growth private equity group of Kayne Anderson Capital Advisors, L.P. (“Kayne” or the “Firm”), is pleased to announce that Leon Chen, Managing Partner, has been named to the 2021 GrowthCap’s Top 40 Under 40 Investors List.
In naming Mr. Chen, GrowthCap recognized his leadership, collaborative work style and ethic, depth of deal experience, and demonstrated ability to help add value to the companies he’s invested in. Over the years, Mr. Chen has played a leading role in building a team of 18 people with a focus on diversity with the team being over 50% female or minority. During his time at Kayne, Mr. Chen has been responsible for identifying investment themes, developing new investment opportunities, deal execution and driving enterprise value creation. He has served in a board director or observer capacity for a number of companies and managed the successful sale of numerous portfolio companies to both financial sponsors and strategics. Mr. Chen has been deeply involved in building out the Firm’s presence within Canada having led five of Kayne Partners nine Canadian investments. He is a member of the Kayne Partners Investment Committee and serves on the firmwide diversity, equity, & inclusion council.
This year’s award process was extremely competitive. According to GrowthCap, “In our eighth year running this awards process, we are astounded by the dramatic increase in capital and talent dedicated to the growth investing asset class since the first cohort of awardees were selected in 2014. This was our most competitive year since inception with hundreds of nominations submitted in support of some of today’s best growth investors. The nominees were truly impressive; each demonstrating notable business intellect and judgment, consistent work ethic, high emotional intelligence and a determination to push through the most challenging situations.”
“Leon is a uniquely talented growth equity investor. He has the ability to study a company under the microscope in one moment and then shift gears to debate macroeconomic trends in the next. What really sets him apart is his ability to partner with entrepreneurs and management teams to help their companies realize their potential. We are very lucky to have him on our team,” said Nishita Cummings, Managing Partner and Co-Head of Growth Equity at Kayne Partners.