Tim Palmer

Tim Palmer is a co-founder and Senior Advisor of Charlesbank Capital Partners, a Boston- and New York-based middle-market private investment firm he helped establish in 1998. Charlesbank has grown into a leading middle-market firm with more than $21 billion in assets under management (as of 12/31/2025), pursuing management-led buyouts, growth-capital financings, opportunistic credit, and technology investments across business and consumer services, healthcare, industrials, and technology. Palmer served as a Managing Director and Chief Operating Officer of Charlesbank until 2018, after which he transitioned to a Senior Advisor role.

Before co-founding Charlesbank, Palmer was a Managing Director of Harvard Private Capital Group — Charlesbank's predecessor organization, which managed Harvard University's private equity assets — joining that group in 1990. Earlier, he invested in and managed a portfolio of private companies at The Field Corporation, a Chicago-based firm, where he focused on investments in the media and communications industries. He began his professional career as an attorney in the Chicago office of Sidley & Austin, practicing primarily in corporate and public finance, commodities, and mergers and acquisitions.

Palmer holds a BA from Purdue University, a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law, and an MBA from the University of Chicago. He is active in civic and nonprofit governance: he has served as Chairman of the Board of the Affordable Housing Institute, on the boards of Save the Bay (Providence, RI) and the GreenLight Fund (Boston) — where he co-chairs GreenLight's American New Cities Fund — and as a Trustee and Chairman of the Investment Committee of the University of Virginia Law School Foundation. Over his private-equity career he has also served on the boards of portfolio and related companies including CIFC, Peacock Engineering, The Princeton Review, and TLC Vision.

• Through Charlesbank, invests thematically in the middle market across business and consumer services, healthcare, industrials, and technology & technology infrastructure, favoring management-led buyouts, growth capital, opportunistic credit, and technology deals with a long-term value-creation approach.
• Personally serves as a board member and advisor to executives of several start-up private companies — the basis for his classification as an angel / seed-stage investor.
• Career-long affinity for media and communications investments, dating to his time at The Field Corporation.
• Strong orientation toward mission-driven and civic ventures (affordable housing, coastal/environmental conservation, equitable community investment via GreenLight's American New Cities Fund).