Prior to joining Vistria, Latif worked on healthcare investments at Brookstone Partners and Welsh, Carson, Anderson & Stowe.
This profile by John R Fischer originally appeared in PE Hub’s Dealmakers to Watch series.
Natasha Latif realized that private equity was the career for her while still an economics major at the University of Chicago. Wanting to solve real-world problems with analytics, the Pakistani native saw she could do so by helping PE-backed companies scale their societal impacts and started right out of school as a private equity associate at Brookstone Partners, a New York-based PE firm targeting the building products, aerospace, healthcare, medical, packaging and plastics sectors.
Completing several healthcare transactions there led Latif to delve further into the sector, eventually leading her to The Vistria Group, which announced in July her promotion to partner on its healthcare team.
For the Chicago-based firm, which also targets knowledge and learning solutions, financial services and housing assets, healthcare makes up 60 percent of its total investments. It focuses on healthcare services as well as pharma and life sciences, which are Latif’s primary focus areas, she told PE Hub as part of its Dealmakers to Watch series.
“With healthcare, the biggest thing is being curious,” she said. “Our healthcare system is very complex, and there are a lot of different nuances. I think someone who enjoys learning that complexity and thinking about how certain business models can address the issues in the healthcare system should ask a lot of questions and try to understand why things work the way they do and if there could be a better approach.”
As a partner, Latif will oversee a team of 17 members, the exact size Vistria was when she joined in 2017. The firm, which has undergone significant growth over the past few years, today employs over 100 professionals and has more than $12.9 billion in AUM across its funds and co-investment vehicles, with over 40 platforms across its flagship funds. Joining Latif are two other partners appointed in July: Andréa Poldoian for its KLS practice and Nick Potter for financial services.
Career beginnings
Following her three years at Brookstone, Latif enrolled in the MBA program at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, graduating in 2016. From there, she joined Welsh, Carson, Anderson & Stowe in New York as a senior associate, primarily overseeing its healthcare investments, before joining Vistria, where she was promoted from senior associate to principal in 2021.
During her time there, the San Francisco-based Latif has helped complete 11 investments that represented $1.8 billion of equity deployed by Vistria across its transactions. That includes the firm’s joint 2022 acquisition with GHO Capital, of Alcami, a pharmaceutical contract development and manufacturing organization.
At the time, it was the largest equity check signed by the firm, according to Latif, who co-led diligence, structure and negotiation processes for the deal. “With any transaction that you are making a bet in, it is super important to have conviction in the space – we take a thematic approach to thesis building. The structure of the transaction and how you surround that business with other resources and expertise is also important.”
That same year, The Wall Street Journal named her among the “Next Generation of Rising Stars” in its annual Women to Watch list. She also is a board member for Alcami, along with Supplemental Health Care, BioCare and Rock Dental, and was formerly on the boards for AIS Healthcare, Medalogix, PANTHERx and SCA Pharma.
Her most recent accomplishment, she said, is a deal she just helped wrap for a clinical research organization focused on facilitating drug discoveries, which the firm will be announcing in the coming months.
“We are very focused on growth and building that business in a way that continues to provide value to customers and life enhancing therapies to patients,” said Latif. “It also has a very strong impact thesis.”
Making an impact
As before, Latif’s main focus continues to be pharma services and products, and, in line with Vistria’s focus on impact, she is looking to instill positive changes through these investments. Currently, as part of one of Vistria’s recent investments, she is aiming to help improve diversity and boost representation in clinical trials by influencing site selection to ensure a wider variety of patients can participate in trials and help generate scientific advances that all communities can benefit from.
“Impact is a newer concept for companies because it’s not like they have tracked it the same way as the Vistria team,” she said. “Over time, they get more excited, realizing, ‘Oh, we could do things differently. We could tweak certain things.’ They become creative and start championing our approach. It’s cool to see that versus Vistria making suggestions.”
As partner, Latif also aims to continue to provide strong returns for investors and is continuously evaluating themes and areas for enhancing quality and outcomes as part of Vistria’s new deal opportunities.
The other part of her new role that she is looking forward to is mentoring other members of Vistria’s healthcare team and the next generation of PE dealmakers. Her most important advice to newcomers, particularly those interested in healthcare investing, is to surround themselves with people with experience in different subsectors and at building businesses the right way.
“Some people are masterful negotiators, and some people build trust with others quickly,” she said. “I think you can learn something from everyone.”
Editor’s note: PE Hub has recently launched a new series of profiles called Dealmakers to Watch. We’re featuring private equity professionals as they pivot to new challenges, such as moving to a new firm, launching a new firm, getting promoted to partner, launching an investment strategy, closing a significant deal or some other new endeavour.
