Veteran LP Kelly Williams to step back into advisory role

As of June 1 2015, Williams will move from president of the Private Markets Business at GCM Grosvenor into a senior advisory role, according to an emailed statement from GCM Grosvenor, an alternative asset manager. As a senior advisor, Williams will remain an “economic partner of the firm and continue to work with GCM Grosvenor’s clients going forward,” the firm said.

The transition would allow Williams to focus on areas of the industry “for which she has a real passion” like “issues of diversity and social and civic responsibility,” Grosvenor said in the statement.

Other senior managers will continue to lead the private markets group after Williams’s transition. The leadership team includes Managing Directors Vikram Bhaskar, Dave Russell, Bernard Yancovich, Derek Jones and Peter Braffman, according to Patrick Tucker, a spokesman for GCM Grosvenor.

GCM Grosvenor does not anticipate naming a new president to replace Williams, Tucker said.

Williams co-founded the Credit Suisse Customized Fund Investment Group in 1999; the group went on to become one of the biggest names in private equity fund investing. Its client list has included New Jersey’s state pension system, the California Public Employees’ Retirement System, the Teacher Retirement System of Texas and the Virginia Retirement System.

GCM Grosvenor completed its acquisition of the business last year, making it the foundation of its private equity platform, with Williams at the helm as president, according to a press release. The combined businesses had $44 billion of assets under management when the deal closed, the press release said.

Prior to Credit Suisse, Williams was an executive director with Prudential’s private equity group, which she co-founded in 1999. Before that, she was an associate with Milbank, Tweed, Hadley and McCloy, according to her biography on GCM Grosvenor’s website.

Williams also is the founding board chair of the Private Equity Women Investor Network, the bio said.