Ulises focuses on origination, screening, due diligence, packaging and management of various alternative products for distribution with an emphasis on real assets including real estate, energy, infrastructure, natural resources and ESG/Impact Investing. He has 21 years of financial services and corporate experience, fifteen of which have been spent at Eaton Partners. Ulises has led over 65 capital raises including several notable first time funds and top-offs for established asset managers.
Prior to joining Eaton, he worked at Servicios Quirurgicos, an exclusive distributor for Tyco Healthcare, a U.S.-based public conglomerate where he oversaw logistic and distribution efforts. He began his career at Grupo Alza in their production and operations units overseeing system implementations and production execution.
Ulises received an MBA in Finance from Fordham University, where he graduated with honors and was recipient of the Hitachi Scholarship for Academic Merit. He has a degree in Industrial Engineering from Universidad Rafael Landivar. He holds Series 7 and 63 licenses with FINRA. Ulises also holds Mexican citizenship and is fluent in Spanish and English.
Michael Crawford leads the real estate fundraising team and focuses on several of the private equity and real asset strategies at Eaton Partners. He has over 29 years of experience in alternative investments. Prior to joining Eaton Partners, he was a principal in the Private Capital Markets Group at Robertson Stephens where his industry coverage included public real estate and healthcare companies, specifically raising private equity capital for public REITs and private investments in public equities (PIPES). Previously, he worked as a Vice President, Institutional Equities at Paine Webber. He began his career at Cabot, Cabot & Forbes in Boston, where he was responsible for business development of the firm’s real estate consulting and asset management services.
Michael received an MBA in Finance and Real Estate from Columbia University Graduate School of Business and a BA in English from Brown University. He holds Series 7 and 63 licenses with FINRA. He is on the Board of Overseers for the Joslin Diabetes Center in Boston, Massachusetts.
Chris Lerner is a global Partner and Head of Asia for Eaton where he leads the origination and execution of fundraises, secondaries and strategic advisory. Chris has over 19 years’ experience in private markets investments and investment banking with over $15 billion in completed transactions.
Prior to joining Eaton Partners, he was a Managing Partner for Mercer Street Capital, an independent investment and cross-border strategy consulting firm based in US and China. Chris began his career with Citigroup and its predecessor firms, Salomon Brothers and Smith Barney. He was the firm’s first investment banking expatriate based in Mainland China and helped established the Asia Pacific Financial Institutions Group. Later, he worked on the corporate buy-side in strategic planning and M&A, including for The Timberland Company where he completed the first four acquisitions in that company’s history.
Under Chris’ leadership, Eaton has been the recipient of numerous industry accolades in Asia including Private Equity International’s fund placement firm of the year for two consecutive years, as well as secondary advisor of the year.
Chris received an MBA from Columbia Business School and a BA from Tufts University. He also earned a Certificate in Mandarin Chinese from the College of Foreign Languages in Beijing. He holds Series 24, 7, 63 and 79 licenses with FINRA. Chris is also licensed with the SFC in Hong Kong and registered with the FCA in the United Kingdom.
Akikul Islam works out of the London office as a Director for our Project Management and Origination Team. Prior to joining Eaton Partners, Aki spent more than five years with the Park Hill Group, where he focused on origination and execution of the Firm’s alternative investment fund products. He began his career with The Royal Bank of Scotland Plc as an EMEA Corporate Credit Loan Origination & Sales Associate.
Aki earned his Masters of Arts in Mathematics from University of Oxford. He is also licensed with the FCA in Europe.
Ryan focuses on the distribution of the firm’s private equity, private credit, real asset and real estate fund distribution. He has over 14 years of experience in the financial services industry. Prior to joining Eaton Partners, Ryan was Vice President at Dearborn Capital Management, where he was responsible for the distribution of the firm’s alternative investment strategies. Previously, he worked as an analyst at a boutique research firm, where he focused on commodity markets research. Ryan began his career on the equity desk of a proprietary trading firm.
Ryan received his BA in Economics from Indiana University. He is a CAIA Charter Holder and holds Series 7, 22, 31, and 63 licenses with FINRA
Nina Yang focuses on the origination and execution of strategic advisory, fundraises and secondaries in Asia. Nina has nearly a decade of experience in M&A and capital raising for publicly listed companies and private equity firms. She joined Eaton Partners from Morgan Stanley in New York, where she was senior vice president in investment banking focused on energy, industrials and basic materials sectors. Nina has led and worked on several large domestic and cross-border M&A deals at Morgan Stanley, including Chemtura’s sale to Lanxess, Monsanto’s sale to Bayer, Rentech Nitrogen Partners’ sale to CVR Partners, and Agrium-Potash MOE. Prior to Morgan Stanley, she was with Credit Suisse in the industrials group of Investment Banking division where she worked on high yield financing and LBOs for financial sponsors and IPOs of private equity portfolio companies in New York.
Nina received an MBA from the Harvard Business School and a Bachelor’s Degree in Commerce (Finance Major) from the University of British Columbia. She speaks fluent English, Mandarin and Cantonese.
