Matthew Ford

Matthew Ford is a private-markets investor best known as a Partner at Freemark Partners, the New York–based private investment firm/family office associated with the Marks family (Howard Marks, co-founder and co-chairman of Oaktree Capital). Freemark builds a concentrated portfolio of high-quality lower-middle-market businesses, typically family-owned or entrepreneur-led companies with about $2–10 million of pre-tax earnings across light industrial and industrial services, business services, and consumer products and services. This is a control/buyout mandate rather than seed-stage angel investing — an important correction to the "Angel Investors / Seed Round" tag on the source record.

Before Freemark, Ford spent roughly eight years investing in and working alongside middle-market companies at two private equity firms, Bregal Partners and ShoreView Industries. He began his career as a management consultant at The Boston Consulting Group (BCG).

Ford earned a B.B.A. from the Henry B. Tippie College of Business at the University of Iowa, graduating first in his class, and an M.B.A. from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, where he was a Palmer Scholar (Wharton's highest academic distinction) and received the Henry Ford II Fellowship as the top first-year student. He holds the CFA and CFP® designations.

More recently, Ford founded Klima Capital Advisors, an environmental asset manager focused on carbon markets (carbon cap-and-trade allowances and related greenhouse-gas programs), where he serves as Founder and Co-Chief Investment Officer. In February 2022, former PIMCO carbon strategist Klaus Thuerbach — whom Ford met while both pursued MBAs at Wharton — joined Klima as Founding Partner and Co-CIO. Ford is also listed as Founder/CEO of BlackOak Advisors.

• Freemark Partners (lower-middle-market control investing): acquires and builds a concentrated portfolio of high-quality businesses, partnering with family-owned or entrepreneurial companies (~$2–10M pre-tax earnings).
• Sectors (Freemark): light industrial & industrial services; business services; consumer products & services.
• Approach: long-term, patient family-office capital rather than fund-cycle-driven investing; operationally involved partnership with founders/owners.
• Klima Capital thesis (Ford's own stated view): "carbon markets have a key role to play in reducing the world's carbon emissions," positioning carbon allowances as an emerging asset class offering both returns and climate-transition risk management.
• Note for founders: Neither Freemark nor Klima is a seed/angel vehicle; a pre-revenue software startup is outside both mandates.