Mark Jennings

Mark E. Jennings is a co-founder of Generation Partners and has served as a Managing Partner of the firm since its founding in the mid-1990s (the firm dates its founding to 1995). He is based in the firm's Austin, Texas office, while co-founder John Hawkins operates from Los Angeles and Managing Partner Andrew Hertzmark leads the Greenwich, Connecticut headquarters. Generation Partners describes itself as a provider of "patient capital and long-term partnerships," using an investment structure designed to enable multi-decade ownership of portfolio companies — an approach positioned as an alternative to the fixed-life, liquidity-driven model of a typical private equity fund.

Before co-founding Generation Partners, Jennings was a Partner at Centre Partners, a private equity firm affiliated with Lazard Frères & Co., from 1987 to 1996. He began his career at Goldman, Sachs & Co., where he worked from 1986 to 1987. Over his career he has served on the boards of numerous private and publicly traded companies, and he continues to sit on the boards of several Generation portfolio companies, including Sterling (Sterling Talent Solutions/SterlingCheck) and Remote Legal.

Jennings holds a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin and an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School. Outside of investing, he is a founding board member of the Musician Treatment Foundation, a charitable organization that provides surgical care to professional musicians.

• Growth equity, not venture/seed: Generation invests growth and expansion capital via majority buyouts and minority equity positions — typically in the ~$10M–$75M range per company (with some sources citing up to $100M) — rather than early-stage seed checks.
• Technology-enabled services: The consistent target is service businesses whose growth is amplified by technology and by favorable secular trends, across Business & Information Services, Healthcare Services & Technology, Media & Marketing Services, software, education, and real estate.
• Thematic, sector-driven sourcing: The firm develops investment themes and then targets specific sub-sectors poised to benefit from long-term structural change, rather than reacting to inbound deal flow alone.
• Long hold / "patient capital": A stated ~10-year (or longer) hold horizon and a structure enabling multi-decade ownership — pitched to entrepreneurs and CEOs who want a durable capital partner free from typical PE fund liquidity pressures.
• Hands-on value creation: The firm emphasizes business-building support beyond capital — M&A, IPOs, public equity and debt financings, and strategic partnerships — having guided portfolio companies through multiple public offerings.