Mr. Cravens coordinates global YPE operations and leads efforts to empower leadership at the local level. He currently serves as CEO of Sutton Hill, a boutique advisory firm focused exclusively on providing fundraising and investor relations services to private equity firms in North America.
Previously, he led the private equity fund analytics group at Cogent Partners, serving institutional and family office limited partners globally. In this capacity, asset owners leveraged Mr. Cravens for specialized private equity fund due diligence, valuation, and liquidity advisory assignments – including those that involved “sell vs. hold” decisions. Cogent Partners, recently acquired by Greenhill, pioneered the secondary market for private equity and is the leading sell-side advisor worldwide for LP stakes.
Mr. Cravens has also worked as a member of the investment team at First Reserve, the largest and oldest private equity firm focused on the energy industry with over $26 billion raised since inception. He was responsible for all aspects of the investment process, ranging from deal origination and structuring to due diligence, execution and monitoring.
In addition, he has served in an executive role as chief revenue officer for Century Interactive, a private equity-backed marketing analytics company. Mr. Cravens began his career as an analyst in the global energy group at UBS, where he led financial modeling and process-oriented responsibilities in support of potential and actual advisory and capital markets transactions. Mr. Cravens holds a BBA from the University of Texas at Austin and MBA from the Harvard Business School. He lives in Pittsburgh with his wife, McCall, and three children.
