Q&A With Carlyle’s New Tech Chief

Carlyle Group has named Lúcia Soares as chief information officer and head of technology transformation, a role that includes overseeing the $381 billion private-equity and investing firm’s internal information-technology systems, while advising IT leaders at hundreds of its portfolio companies.

Soares, a former vice president at Johnson & Johnson who has served as Carlyle’s CIO of global portfolio solutions since 2021, said working with tech chiefs at other companies is familiar territory. With the move, she plans to leverage insight gleaned from her experience with the firm’s portfolio companies—such as automation, data management and other tech strategies—into stepped-up efforts to optimize Carlyle’s own use of technology as its full-time CIO. 

That role was left vacant when the firm’s former CIO Michael Haas passed away, roughly two years ago. Since then, it has been led by interim leaders reporting to Carlyle’s chief operating officer, Christopher Finn, the firm said.

Soares, who joined Carlyle in 2019, is already credited with having driven some $250 million in cost savings and revenue growth across the firm’s portfolio companies over the past two years through a range of digital initiatives, Carlyle said. Economic uncertainties and unsteady market conditions are likely to make that task more challenging in the year ahead.

In May, Carlyle reported an unexpected decline in first-quarter revenue, to $859 million, from $1.58 billion in the same period a year earlier, while net income attributable to shareholders plummeted to $100.7 million, from $571.6 million. In recent months, the firm’s executive team has also undergone rapid changes aimed at jump-starting growth. In June, the firm named John Redett as chief financial officer and head of corporate strategy.

Just a few months earlier, former Goldman Sachs co-president Harvey Schwartz took over as the firm’s new chief executive officer. 

The Wall Street Journal spoke recently with Soares about her new role at Carlyle and what technology can do for corporate buyers and investors. Edited excerpts below.

WSJ: How is the job of a CIO at a private-equity firm different from leading IT at businesses in other industries?

Soares: Global investment firms require CIOs to apply a few different lenses in how to lead. First, we invest in businesses that in turn have their own CIOs, technology challenges and value-creation opportunities. We are in a unique position to learn, advise and scale technology value-creation across industries and diverse sets of companies. At Carlyle, I have spent more than four years overseeing portfolio-company advisory and working with over 100 of those companies. This experience, coupled with my previous operational experience as a CIO, has given me unique insights into how to define technology strategies that solve for compelling business problems, and how to execute in a way that delivers value to the bottom line.

WSJ: What will your focus be for leading internal IT at Carlyle?

Soares: My focus will be to answer the question, how can technology deliver outsized value and differentiation for the firm? I see technology doing this in two main ways. First, using technology as a driver of efficiency and automation to scale our growth. Second, using technology as an innovation lever to deliver unique products and experiences for our employees, investors and stakeholders. The use of cloud, machine-learning, artificial intelligence, generative AI, automation are all trends we are following. 

WSJ: How do you plan to work with Carlyle’s portfolio companies? What are you hearing from CIOs at these companies?

Soares: My focus will be to increase the speed, scale and impact of technology to drive Carlyle’s growth. 

Our technology leaders across the portfolio of investments and our firm are leaning into data analytics and data science as we enter into a new phase of innovation and experimentation. But even though new technology can create massive value, the biggest unlock is an area I’ll be focused on: driving a culture of technology adoption and grassroots innovation. I think a company that empowers its employees—not just the technology department—to embrace technology, is one with a bright future ahead. 

WSJ: Does Carlyle benefit from having technology firms in its portfolio that are developing IT tools the firm can leverage for itself? 

Soares: Our portfolio companies stand on their own; they have their own teams and technology strategies. The power of partnership boils down to connecting technology leaders across the portfolio with our Carlyle team to exchange best practices and share learnings. This growing network and connected tissue that we have developed over time, across geographies and industries, has empowered each and every one of us to be better leaders as we navigate current and future market environments.

Write to Angus Loten at [email protected]