J.P. Morgan Private Capital named Alex Bell as a partner of its Sustainable Growth Equity (SGE) platform. He will be based in New York alongside the platform’s managing partner and co-global heads, Osei Van Horne and Tanya Barnes.
The SGE platform was established in 2021 — a year when J.P. Morgan Chase made major moves on the ESG front. The company pledged to invest more than $2.5 trillion in sustainable development and climate action over 10 years, and also committed to co-invest alongside Project Black, an Ariel Alternatives private equity fund created to boost minority entrepreneurship and racial equity initiatives.
Bell started his career in the power and utilities investment banking division at Lehman Brothers before moving on to focus on energy private equity at managers such as Pine Brook Partners and Cadent Energy Partners. A native of Mexico, he is fluent or conversational in four languages, and he put those skills to use in a transnational career. As a director at Canadian pension Caisse de Dépôt et Placement du Québec, he helped launch a C$500 million ($368 million) private equity platform to back early-growth opportunities and late-stage ventures in sustainable food and agriculture, energy transition and decarbonization. He worked most recently at France’s Tikehau Capital, where he served as head of North America Climate Private Equity.
“I’ve known Alex for nearly two decades and he is a pragmatic, values-driven investor who brings years of multi-asset class sustainable investing experience to the team,” said SGE partner and co-global head Barnes, who joined the team in January 2022 as J.P. Morgan announced an investment of up to $150 million to anchor the team’s first investment strategy with a focus on growth-stage private companies advancing resource efficiency and climate adaptation solutions.
“J.P. Morgan is uniquely positioned to support and invest in the decarbonization of heavy industries — a multi-trillion-dollar market opportunity — and Alex’s depth of experience investing in climate solutions will be valuable to our investment team,” said fellow SGE Partner and Co-Global head Van Horne, who joined the team at the same time.
The strategy is currently targeting companies developing solutions that can improve financial and climate outcomes across the heavy industry sectors that generate over 80% of global Greenhouse Gas emissions: transportation and supply chain, real estate and the built environment, industrials and manufacturing, and food and agriculture.
