CAIS Expands Board of Directors with Technology Leadership

New board members include Silicon Valley pioneer Ellen Levy and FinTech leader Neal Pawar

CAIS, the leading alternative investment platform, today announced Ellen Levy and Neal Pawar have joined the company’s Board of Directors. The expanded Board of Directors brings deep industry expertise in technology and innovation, amplifying strengths of current board members and the CAIS leadership team.

“Our growing Board of Directors brings both strong technology experience and deep networks that will continue to elevate CAIS’ position as a fintech leader,” said CAIS Founder and CEO Matt Brown. “This is an exciting time for CAIS, and we are thrilled to have Ellen and Neal on our team. We look forward to their contributions to the many successes that lie ahead.”

Ellen Levy is widely recognized as one of the most active investors, advisors, and entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley. Ellen spent the better part of a decade working with LinkedIn, having served on the Executive Team as Vice President of Corporate Development & Strategy after originally serving on the Advisory Board when the company was first founded. She is currently an investor in or advisor to several dozen startup companies and serves as the Managing Director of Silicon Valley Connect and Senior Advisor to the President of Arizona State University. She is a member of the Board of Directors for real-estate finance company Walker & Dunlop (WD) as well as the platform for service members and veterans company Rallypoint. She will help guide CAIS’ continued rapid growth with her expertise in innovation and strategy.

“I was particularly drawn to CAIS when I saw how the company combines deep expertise in the investment world with an unwavering focus on putting the needs of financial advisors first,” said Levy. “The CAIS team has a track record of success in their mission to make alts accessible and understandable to advisors, asset managers, and, ultimately, the individual investor. It is readily apparent to me that the company is now poised to build on that success through enhancing our technology, expanding our education platform, deepening integrations, and streamlining the user experience.”

Neal Pawar is a global business leader with a highly technical and quantitative background. Neal started his career writing derivatives option trading systems in the mid 1990's at O'Connor/Swiss Bank in Chicago, which eventually became UBS. He later held senior technical leadership roles, including Partner and CTO roles at quantitative firms D. E. Shaw & Co, and AQR Capital as well as large global operating roles while serving as CIO of UBS Wealth Management and Group CIO of Deutsche Bank.

“The opportunity to be a part of a company that is pioneering technology on the intersection of Advisors and Alternatives felt like a natural fit given my background,” said Pawar. “CAIS' vision resonated with me from the moment I met them, and I'm looking forward to helping them achieve their goals.”

Today’s announcement comes on the heels of CAIS’ $50M Series B equity investment from Eldridge, a holding company that grows diversified businesses across Insurance, Credit, Technology, Real Estate, Sports and Media, and Consumer. In connection with this investment, Todd Boehly, Co-founder and CEO of Eldridge, and Todd Gilbert, Principal at Eldridge, joined the CAIS Board of Directors.

CAIS’ expansion of the Board of Directors follows record 2019 and 2020 growth. Today, thousands of financial advisors who control over $1.2 trillion in assets have joined the platform to access an evolving menu of alternative investment funds and products including hedge funds, private equity, private credit, real estate, digital assets, and structured notes.

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