Masumi Waida

Masumi Waida is the Chief Financial Officer of ACON Investments, a Washington, D.C.–based middle-market private equity firm founded in 1996. He joined ACON in 2019, hired from Fortress Investment Group, where he had served as a Managing Director and Chief Financial Officer of the Mount Kellett Funds. He originally came to that role through Mount Kellett Capital Management, a global multi-strategy investment management firm focused on special situations and opportunistic investing, which was later absorbed into Fortress. His appointment at ACON (reported in August 2019) filled the CFO seat previously held by Kwame Lewis.

Earlier in his career, Waida was a Vice President at Lehman Brothers, where he was responsible for overseeing various private equity and hedge fund products. He began his career at PricewaterhouseCoopers, working in assurance in both New York and Canada, serving industry-leading clients including private equity and hedge funds, funds of funds, mutual funds, and consumer and industrial products and services companies — a client mix that maps closely to ACON's own sector focus today.

Waida holds a Bachelor of Commerce degree from the University of Alberta and carries the Chartered Professional Accountant / Chartered Accountant (CPA, CA) designation from the Chartered Professional Accountants of Canada. As CFO, he sits at the top of ACON's finance organization; industry org-chart data lists him with a large number of direct reports across the firm's fund-finance and accounting functions.

At the firm level, ACON has managed approximately $7.3 billion since inception across roughly 88 platform investments and 142 add-on acquisitions, with portfolio companies collectively employing more than 56,000 people. The firm runs three investment platforms — U.S., Latin America, and Southern Europe — from offices in Washington, D.C. (HQ), Dallas, Los Angeles, New York, Bogotá, Madrid, Mexico City, and São Paulo.

• Note on role: As CFO, Waida is responsible for fund finance, accounting, controls, and LP reporting — he is not the firm's deal decision-maker. The points below describe ACON's investment approach, which frames his mandate.
• Stage & structure: Middle-market private equity — control and significant-minority equity positions in established companies, plus bolt-on / add-on acquisitions; not venture, angel, or seed.
• Sectors: Thematic, value-oriented focus on Consumer and Industrials, with deep expertise also across Business Services.
• Thesis in the firm's words: ACON targets "dislocation and value creation at inflection points," pairing operational transformation with a value orientation.
• Geography: Three dedicated platforms — the United States, Latin America (Mexico, Colombia, Brazil), and Southern Europe (Spain).
• Co-investment heavy: ACON runs a robust co-investment program — co-investments have represented roughly 110% of U.S. fund invested capital since 2001, with about 73% of U.S. deals including co-investment participation.