PALO ALTO, NEW YORK and LONDON, October 11, 2019 – Advent International, one of the largest and most experienced global private equity investors, today announced that it has engaged Jon McNeill, former Chief Operating Officer of Lyft Inc. and former President of Global Sales, Marketing, Delivery and Service at Tesla Motors Inc., as an Advisory Partner.

Advent recently completed fundraising for both its flagship Global Private Equity (GPE) IX fund, at $17.5 billion, and Advent TECH, a $2 billion technology-focused companion fund to GPE IX.

McNeill will work closely with the Advent TECH team to identify and assess investment opportunities in the technology sector. Advent TECH, combined with the scale and multisector expertise of the GPE program, allows Advent to invest broadly across the technology landscape in a variety of software and data subsectors—from smaller growth equity transactions to larger buyouts. He will also help portfolio companies across all of Advent’s core sectors create value through operational improvements and revenue growth initiatives.

Advent also recently opened an office in Palo Alto, California, and has expanded its technology investment team by more than 50% this year, with plans to further grow the group to more than 25 people in the next 12 months.

The firm has invested in technology, fintech and payments companies such as Definitive Healthcare, Transaction Services Group, TransUnion (NYSE: TRU), Clearent, Concardis, Nets, Nexi (BIT: NEXI) and Worldpay.

“Jon is a world-class leader who has an outstanding record of growing innovative businesses that create value for employees, commercial partners and investors,” said Bryan Taylor, Managing Partner and Head of the Advent TECH team. “His experience at the intersection of digital technologies and consumer, enterprise and mobility companies will be invaluable as we continue to expand our tech investment activities and drive strategic and operational initiatives at our portfolio companies. We are thrilled to partner with him.”

“I have long admired Advent’s sector-focused, operational approach to investing, and I am excited to collaborate with this talented team of professionals,” said McNeill. “I look forward to working alongside Advent’s sector teams and portfolio-company management to deepen the firm’s relationships within the broader technology community and help drive growth and improvements across Advent’s diverse portfolio.”

McNeill is the most recent executive to join Advent’s large and growing network of operating professionals, a long-established element of the firm’s highly operational approach to investing. In addition to Advent’s in-house deal team and portfolio support group, the firm’s platform includes more than 90 external Operating Partners—former senior executives with deep sector expertise—and over 20 Operations Advisors—former executives with deep functional expertise in areas such as finance, IT, HR and sales. These professionals bring industry best practices, tools and knowledge to help management teams optimize and grow businesses successfully.

“Advent’s leading network of external operating professionals is an important resource we offer our portfolio companies to help improve and expand their businesses,” said David Mussafer, a Managing Partner at Advent in Boston. “The addition of Jon McNeill will further enhance both the tech expertise we can offer to our management teams and our ability to apply technology-driven value creation plans that will position our portfolio companies for the future.”

McNeill has deep experience as both an entrepreneur and an executive at scale. He served as the Chief Operating Officer at Lyft from March 2018 to July 2019. He previously led all customer-facing operations for Tesla Motors as President, Global Sales, Marketing, Delivery and Service from September 2015 to February 2018. Prior to joining Tesla, McNeill was the Chief Executive Officer of Enservio Inc., a software company, from 2006 until 2015, and founder of multiple technology and retail companies including TruMotion, Sterling, First Notice Systems and Trek Bicycle Stores Inc. He began his career at Bain & Company.

He is the recipient of the 2012 Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year award and in 2013 was named “Most Admired CEO” by Boston Business Journal.

McNeill serves on the boards of lululemon athletica (Nasdaq: LULU), an Advent portfolio company; TruMotion; and the Brigham & Women’s Hospital in Boston. He received a bachelor’s degree in economics from Northwestern University.

Advent has a long history of technology investing, having started as a technology-focused venture capital investor in the 1980s. Since establishing its private equity strategy in 1990, the firm has invested in technology companies with a combined enterprise value of over $14 billion worldwide.