Dry Powder: The Private Equity Podcast
Previously on Dry Powder, Rob Lucas, CEO of CVC, shared what mountaineering has taught him about building teams and planning for the unexpected.
You can listen to this episode of Dry Powder and catch future episodes by subscribing on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you may listen.
Today on the show, I ask Rob to turn that same philosophy toward an uncertain future. We’ll explore how CVC is navigating one of the toughest fund-raising markets in decades and why performance and trust remain the bedrock of the GP–LP model. We’ll also discuss CVC’s firm-wide embrace of AI.
“I use it every day,” Rob says. “I have a Monday morning meeting where we have all the investment teams across the globe on the call, and I make it clear to everybody that we do monitor usage and we want everybody to be using it.”
Finally, Rob explains why he believes Europe remains one of the world’s most compelling markets for generating alpha.
“ Within Europe,” he says, “it’s the very inefficiency, it’s the very complexity, it’s the level of bureaucracy that mean that people look at the macro in a less positive way, which actually plays so well to private equity. We can just bring so much to the show.”
The Private Equity Podcast
In our podcast series, Bain's Hugh MacArthur interviews leading experts on the trends and opportunities that will redefine the private equity industry.