Brad West

Brad West is a Partner at Pritzker Private Capital (PPC), where he serves as Chief Operating Officer and General Counsel and also holds the role of Chief Compliance Officer. He oversees the firm's internal operations — including its legal and compliance, human resources, information technology, and finance functions — and is responsible for administering PPC's legal, risk management, and regulatory compliance programs. He joined the firm (then known as Pritzker Group Private Capital / PGPC) in 2014 as Vice President – Legal, and over a decade-long tenure progressively took on greater responsibility across the firm's transactional, legal, compliance, and risk-management activities.

West was promoted to Chief Operating Officer effective January 1, 2024, retaining his General Counsel and Chief Compliance Officer titles. The promotion was announced alongside David Gau's elevation to President, reflecting a broadening of PPC's senior leadership bench under Managing Partner and CEO Tony Pritzker.

Before joining PPC, West worked in the private equity, finance, and transactions practice of the law firm Vedder Price, P.C., and earlier in the corporate and securities group at Mayer Brown LLP. He earned his J.D. from the University of Minnesota Law School (reportedly magna cum laude) and his B.B.A. in accounting and information systems from the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

Pritzker Private Capital, founded in 2002 and rooted in the Pritzker family's legacy of building enterprises such as Hyatt Hotels and the Marmon Group, is a pioneer of "family direct" investing. Its long-duration capital base is designed to give it flexibility on transaction structure and holding period. As West's role is operational and legal rather than deal-sourcing, he functions as a key steward of the firm's platform rather than a front-line deal partner.

• PPC pursues control investments in established, cash-flow-generating middle-market companies — this is a buyout strategy, not venture/seed investing.
• Sectors: manufactured products and services, spanning industrial products & services, consumer products & services, value-added distribution, and business/healthcare services.
• Company profile: leading family- and entrepreneur-owned businesses in North America, often in generational-transition or growth-capital situations.
• Deal size: target enterprise values generally ~$200M–$2B.
• Differentiator: a long-duration, flexible capital base that allows patient holding periods, customized deal structures, and alignment with founding families and management teams — PPC markets itself as an alternative to traditional fixed-life private equity funds.
• West's own mandate is operational: as COO/GC/CCO he owns legal, compliance, risk, HR, IT, and finance — i.e., the infrastructure that supports the firm's investing rather than the investment thesis itself.