John Mazzarino

John Mazzarino is founder and Managing Principal of Cherokee. Cherokee states that it has raised $2.2 billion across five institutional private equity funds and invested in the acquisition, cleanup, development, and sale of more than 550 properties in the United States, Canada, and Europe.

Before forming Cherokee, Mazzarino worked at Bain & Company and was president of two private equity-backed businesses. A Fidus Investment Corporation filing describes his earlier career in more detail: he worked at Peat, Marwick, Mitchell & Co. from 1977 to 1982, consulting on policy issues for agencies including the EPA, HUD, and DOE, then worked at Bain & Company from 1982 to 1988, focusing on mergers and acquisitions and corporate strategy.

Mazzarino began investing personal capital in corporate transactions in the late 1980s and has formed, invested in, or acquired more than 100 businesses, primarily in sustainability. Cherokee identifies examples including Cherokee Environmental Risk Management, Brownfield Revitalization, Eco-Site, PGSI, and IHHI.

He received a BA in Mathematics from Colgate University, where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. He studied for two years in MIT’s PhD program in Operations Research, served as a teaching assistant and lecturer in graduate optimization and statistics courses, and later earned an MS in Management from MIT Sloan.

• Cherokee’s core model is buying environmentally contaminated or impaired real estate, cleaning it up, developing or repositioning it, and selling it. A 2011 profile described the firm as raising institutional capital to buy brownfield properties, clean them, and sell them to developers.
• The firm’s stated positioning is to combine capital with “creativity, experience and resolve” to generate social, environmental, and economic returns.
• Cherokee’s LinkedIn profile says the firm has invested in more than 550 brownfield real estate assets and managed or invested in over 70 venture companies in environmental remediation, renewable energy, waste-to-energy, energy management, and related fields.
• Mazzarino’s personal investing focus is sustainability: Cherokee says he has formed, invested in, or acquired more than 100 businesses, primarily in that arena.
• He appears better matched to companies or projects with real assets, environmental complexity, regulatory cleanup angles, sustainability strategy, or hard-tech energy exposure than to a generic software seed pitch.