By CAIA Association’s Leadership Team
Our Vision 2035 journey has taken us from Los Angeles to New York, Mumbai to the Middle East, and beyond. Along the way, we’ve been listening to our 14,000-member-strong community, C-suite executives, asset owners, general partners, and asset managers as they face another disruption and opportunities. While each of these conversations has not been explicitly focused on CAIA’s strategy, each conversation has added depth to our understanding of where the industry is headed and how CAIA must evolve to serve, challenge, and accelerate it.
In this special edition with our Board of Directors, the conversation took on a new dimension with the leaders and fiduciaries who not only guide CAIA as an organization but also sit at the intersection of capital markets, asset ownership, and governance. Their perspectives affirmed much of what we’ve been hearing globally, while also adding new layers of insight into the opportunities and challenges ahead.
Private Markets Rising, With Caveats
One theme echoed loudly: the continued ascent of private markets relative to public markets. The group reiterated the advantages we’ve heard around the world: structuring flexibility, informational edges, governance alignment, and longer-term lens. But the discussion underscored an important nuance we’ve heard in other cities, one director termed “the liquidity paradox.”
On one hand, evergreen structures and semi-liquid funds are expanding access, particularly across wealth and retirement channels. On the other hand, there’s skepticism that you can deliver the liquidity premium while simultaneously making illiquid assets liquid. For some, the risk is not just diminished returns but a structural unraveling if public market frameworks are applied to private market product design.
As one participant noted, “you can’t get the liquidity premium while making it liquid in an evergreen format.” That tension will continue to shape product design, regulation, and investor expectations. This will become increasingly important as defined contribution assets overtake defined benefit globally, the “next frontier” for private capital is wealth and retirement markets. That shift will require a new toolbox of product design, liquidity management, and investor education.
Shifting Allocations and Regulatory Gaps
We also heard strong signals about institutional allocation shifts. In parts of the Middle East, clients are allocating 60–70% of portfolios to private equity while de-emphasizing active public equity. At the same time, corporate pensions in the U.S. and UK are pulling back from private assets in favor of liability-driven frameworks and insurance partnerships.
These divergent approaches highlight a broader truth: regulation, product design, and investor behavior are moving at different speeds. Regulation isn’t keeping pace with market innovation, leaving mismatches that could fuel the next wave of “blow-ups.” As one director put it, “there’s always a pendulum that swings between too much regulation that hampers innovation and too little regulation that leads to victims.”
Education for a Converged World
If capital markets are converging between public and private, liquid and illiquid, traditional and alternative, then education must keep pace. Our Board made clear that today’s professionals can no longer succeed with vertical expertise alone. The future demands systems thinking, a necessary evolution of T-shaped skills: deep knowledge in a discipline coupled with broad, horizontal judgment, creativity, and the ability to connect dots across disciplines. This is where the human element can and needs to compete against and embrace the benefits of A.I.
The Role of AI: From Analyst to Committee Member
Artificial intelligence was another major thread. While many firms are using AI as an “efficiency tool,” editing documents, summarizing data, analyzing CRM flows, others are pushing further to sit alongside the more creative and higher-level work.
This evolution raises two profound questions:
1. What does the investment team of the future look like when AI takes on tasks historically reserved for junior talent?
2. How do we train professionals to complement, not compete with, machines?
Our Board agreed that while AI will reshape the organizational chart, in-person communication, judgment, and human creativity will only grow in value. However, as machines become more competitive, it puts pressure on entry-level professionals trying to enter the industry. Further, how will tomorrow’s leaders be developed if machines are doing all the junior work? Many of the Board members discussed how org charts, analyst programs, and talent development have shifted significantly in the past five years.
Market Dynamics: Alignment, Access, and Consolidation
We also surfaced a set of market dynamics that are reshaping relationships between managers, allocators, and investors. Alignment of interest remains a defining factor. Institutions are rewarding GPs willing to be flexible, develop bespoke solutions, offer co-investment opportunities, and return capital efficiently. Those who fail to demonstrate alignment and a true sense of partnership risk consolidation or being cut entirely.
Perhaps the most open question is whether the performance headwinds in private capital are cyclical or structural. If cyclical, familiar playbooks may re-emerge as markets normalize. If structural, new ways of creating value will be required. Either way, the Board agreed that dispersion of returns, between managers, between strategies, between those who can adapt and those who cannot, will persist.
Clear Vision for the Future
At its core, the conversation with our Board served as both an affirmation and a challenge. It affirmed what we’ve been hearing around the world: private markets are central to the future of capital formation, the lines between asset classes are blurring, and investor demand for new structures and access points is growing. But it also challenged us. Regulation is lagging, and education must adapt. But most importantly, the needs and challenges that face the investment professional are happening at a rapid pace.
Interested in our insights on our 2035 Vision from around the globe? CAIA’s leadership team provides an exclusive peek into candid conversations that are shaping the future of investing. Check them out below!
Mumbai – Feb 2025 | Los Angeles – Mar 2025 | Toronto – Apr 2025 | New York – Jun 2025 | Board of Directors - Sep 2025 | London – Sep 2025 | Hong Kong – Oct 2025 | Singapore – Oct 2025 | Riyadh – Dec 2025 (Coming Soon)
About the Contributors
CAIA Association’s Leadership Team consists of John Bowman, CFA, Ruth Carolan, Aaron Filbeck, CAIA, CFA, CFP®, CIPM, FDP, Adele Kohler, CFA, Laura Merlini, CAIA, CIFD, MCSI, Steve Novakovic, CAIA, CFA, and Nick Pollard. With strategic hubs in Geneva, Hong Kong, and Massachusetts, and in collaboration with our Members and Board of Directors, our leadership and staff are committed to advancing the knowledge, integrity, and innovation that drive the future of alternative investments worldwide.
Learn more about CAIA Association and how to become part of a professional network that is shaping the future of investing, by visiting https://caia.org/