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Nick Knapp, who took over as president of CohnReznick Capital in January, discusses the latest changes at the firm and his outlook for project finance and M&A activity with PFR reporter Fotios Tsarouhis.
CohnReznick Capital has rapidly established itself in power project finance and mergers and acquisitions, with particular expertise navigating complex tax equity structures, since its inception in 2008. Recognized as PFR’s Tax Equity Advisory Firm of 2017, the firm also advised on two transactions that won Deal of the Year awards (PFR, 5/21). PFR reporter Fotios Tsarouhis recently sat down with Nick Knapp, who took over as president of the company in January, to discuss the latest changes at the firm and his outlook for project finance and M&A activity.
PFR: You became president of CohnReznick Capital in January. How are you settling into the role?
It’s been good, it was a smooth transition. I was involved in the management side for the last couple of years, focusing on business management and infrastructure, performance management for the team, really just getting to a best practice point of measuring people and the business overall in a transparent way to drive performance optimization.
We’ve been growing pretty fast for the last five years and we had a true start-up mentality. As we continue to grow, the idea is to not mess with the entrepreneurial spirit but become a little more institutionalized, with areas of best practice business principles.
The difference now is that I can take ownership of all of that and be accountable for it. My partner Conor McKenna is also lock-step with me on company management. We have a very special team approach at CRC and we have been focused on overall team empowerment. The entire team has embraced it and really stepped up to share the management responsibilities. At this point, we have settled in with our full focus on high-quality deal execution and growing the business.
We’ve made some good internal adjustments. We also hired some strong supporting professionals around the management infrastructure such as accounting, budgeting and administrative items, which allows for more focus on the business growth and the overall team development.
PFR: How have your day-to-day and month-to-month responsibilities changed? Is there any overlap with your previous position...