Lightyear Capital Names Kevin Watters Senior Advisor
Lightyear Capital LLC ("Lightyear"), a New York-based private equity firm focused on financial services, has appointed Kevin Watters as a Senior Advisor to Lightyear Fund V, L.P. and its parallel investment vehicles ("Fund V"). Mr. Watters is an experienced leader in payments and technology who has successfully transformed businesses by leveraging technology to streamline operations, improving the customer experience, and enhancing client value propositions.
Mr. Watters has held several senior leadership roles within financial services, having spent 18 years working at JPMorgan Chase & Co. ("JPMorgan Chase"). Most recently, he served as Chief Executive Officer of Chase Card Services, which includes Chase's consumer, small business, and commercial card businesses. Prior to leading Card Services, Mr. Watters was Chief Executive Officer of Mortgage Banking where he returned the business to profitability following the global financial crisis. Before becoming Chief Executive Officer of Mortgage Banking, Mr. Watters was Head of Originations, Technology, and the Customer Experience across Mortgage Banking. Mr. Watters joined Mortgage Banking from Business Banking where he served as Chief Executive Officer for five years.
Mr. Watters held several roles at Bank One prior its merger with JPMorgan Chase, including Head of the Corporate Internet Group, President of the Consumer Internet Group, Chief Strategy Officer of the Consumer Internet Group, and Chief Marketing Officer of Wingspan, Bank One's Internet-only bank.
Since retiring from JPMorgan Chase in 2017, Mr. Watters has been an Adjunct Finance Professor at Tulane University.
"We are delighted to welcome Kevin to work with Fund V," said Mark Vassallo, Managing Partner of Lightyear. "He brings invaluable leadership experience along with extensive knowledge of banking and payments technology relevant to Fund V's investment themes, which include the digitization of financial products and services, the integration of payments technology, and the growth of compliance. We look forward to working with him."
Mr. Watters added, "Lightyear has a strong industry reputation along with a talented and knowledgeable team. I'm very much looking forward to bringing my experience and background to help identify and evaluate financial technology investment opportunities and provide strategic insight to portfolio companies and their management teams."
About Lightyear Capital LLC
Founded in 2000, Lightyear is a financial services-focused private equity firm based in New York. Through its affiliated private equity funds, Lightyear makes primarily control investments in North America-based, middle-market companies associated with financial services, including asset management and wealth management, banks and brokerage, commercial and consumer finance, financial technology, healthcare financial services, insurance, and tech-enabled business services. Lightyear brings focus and discipline to its investment process, as well as operating, transaction and strategic management experience, along with significant contacts and resources beyond capital. For more information, please visit www.lycap.com.
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