Welcome! I’m Simi Shah, and in this newsletter, I dive deep into the journeys of South Asian trailblazers. I also highlight upcoming events hosted by us and friends in the community. Find our podcast on Apple, Spotify, and more exciting content on our Instagram & LinkedIn.
Upcoming Events ⚖️
🗓️ Our Events: South Asian CPG Founders Breakfast
We’re teaming up with The Z List to host a breakfast for South Asian founders in the CPG space this Friday ☕️☀️ Interested in attending? Fill out this form.
🤝🏾 Friends’ Events
We’re bringing back this section where we feature events for the South Asian community hosted by trusted friends. Reply if you want yours featured!
Thurs 5/18 South Asian Women Leaders Panel | NYC
Celebrating AAPIHM with leading women across industries
Fri 5/19 Popshift Music Mixer | NYC
A mixer ft. art installations and rising South Asian artists
Sat 5/20 Popshift Music Festival | NYC
A concert ft. Jay Sean, Jonita Gandhi, ZeeMuffin, and others
Tues 5/23 Modern Desi Game Night | Miami
A desi trivia night
Tues 6/6 Annual Impact Summit & Gala | Washington D.C.
Annual Summit celebrating Impact — an org working to ensure equitable South Asian American representation at every level of government.
Latest Episode 🌱 Pooja Goyal, Partner and Chief Investment Officer of Carlyle Global Infrastructure
As someone who started her career in private equity, I’m more than excited to share this episode with you! Pooja Goyal is a Partner and the Chief Investment Officer of Carlyle Global Infrastructure, Co-Head of the Carlyle Global Infrastructure Opportunity Fund (CGI), and Carlyle’s Head of Renewable and Sustainable Energy. With over $381 billion assets under management (AUM), Carlyle is one of the world’s largest investment firms — a megafund that specializes in private equity and private credit.
Prior to joining Carlyle, Pooja was the Head of the Alternative Energy Investing Group at Goldman Sachs, where she led investments in the renewables sector. She joined the group as an associate in 2005, was promoted to Managing Director in 2012, and took over as Head of the group in 2013. Under her leadership, the group built a portfolio of investments dedicated to the renewable energy and sustainable resources sector.
Pooja has held several board and committee positions, including on the boards of Vivint Solar and the American Council of Renewable Energy and the investment committees at Altus Power and Goldman Sachs’ Special Situations Group. Prior to 2005, Pooja was an investment banker at Goldman Sachs. She holds a BS in finance from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School and a BAS in computer and cognitive science from the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences.
Episode excerpts below:
Simi: You’ve been investing in the energy transition for almost 2 decades. You spoken about how the 1.0 evolution of this industry was around renewables. What's 2.0? What's 3.0? How has this industry evolved and what are the biggest challenges you’re seeing today?
Pooja: 1.0 was obviously renewables. With 2.0, you’re talking about batteries, electric vehicles, charging infrastructure, hydrogen, green ammonia, so the opportunity set is expanding. In terms of the complexities in front of us, obviously, you've got to deal with higher interest rates, which means your cost of capital has gone up. You're dealing with inflationary pressures. I would say that those issues are pretty much par for the course for any illiquid equity strategy right now — one could argue even for liquid markets.
But for energy transition, specifically, having been an investor in this market for over 18 years at this point, I've seen the roller coaster. There have been plenty of ups and downs and the thing that I always get concerned about are momentum investors — people who aggregate pools of capital or who make investments simply because it is mainstream and topical. These are complex projects. They're expensive projects. They require time, expertise, resources, and a lot of capital. So to anyone who's in for a quick flip, or to be in and out of the market, or who draws an analogy to tech investing, it's simply not the same. It is very different. That is one thing that always concerns me a little bit about renewables and energy transition, which is the noise that gets created by momentum investors. Because to the extent there are winners and losers, if there are losers, it always taints people's experience with the sector. And that does a disservice not only to investors like myself, but also to management teams.
Simi: You are a woman of color, an immigrant, and you started your career at a time when this industry did not have an eye toward inclusivity. Carlyle is very unique as an institution having nearly 50% of its assets under management (AUM) managed by women. How did you grapple with those initial barriers to entry? From your perspective as a senior leader and as a mom, what have institutions like Carlyle uniquely done to foster this growth and equity?
Pooja: Ignorance was bliss in my case. I never kind of walked into a room and said, ‘Oh, jeez, it looks like I'm the only woman or only minority woman.’ I never really thought about that. I was too focused on whether I knew what I was presenting or that I was prepared for a negotiation session. Having said that, the most complex I've done, or I'm still in the process of doing is being a parent. It is incredibly hard. It is incredibly humbling. And maybe I can tell you 15 years from now whether it worked out or not.
Carlyle is an incredibly supportive organization. And by being supportive, I don't just mean they are providing me with resources, but even just being able to talk to other women at Carlyle, who understand that you're managing a portfolio, you're managing a team, and working with various stakeholders, including other investors. It is a complex set of issues, so getting that guidance and mentorship is important. I'm not talking about sponsorship. I'm just talking about practical advice that's been incredibly useful. Of course, we have different employee groups that also provide support. We've made investments in developing our talent as well. We provide executive coaching to members of our team, but it's the organic interactions that result in practical advice that have been incredibly useful to me. I have said this before, and I will say it again now: Carlyle hired me as a Fund Head when I was relatively young, with very young kids in preschool. They didn't bat an eye. They supported me. And that's just been quite incredible. So I really do believe that Carlyle puts its money where its mouth is.
In this episode, I explore Pooja's role as an influential investor shaping the future of energy at one of the foremost private equity firms in the world. Tune into the full episode on Apple, Spotify, or our website!