Victor Masaya: A Pioneer in Private Equity

An interview with Victor Masaya, Managing Partner at Presidio Investors and pioneer in the private equity industry.

Victor Masaya has been a pioneer in the private equity industry for nearly two decades. He is a managing partner at Presidio Investors, a lower middle-market private equity firm in Austin, Texas. He is part of the founding team at Presidio which was formed in 2017. I recently had a Zoom call with Masaya to discuss his career journey and what it takes to be a successful private equity investor.

“I wear very many hats at Presidio,” Masaya told me when I asked him about his day-to-day responsibilities, explaining that he is responsible for all aspects of the business, from fundraising and deal sourcing to portfolio management and exits. Masaya said that his experience in sales, banking, accounting, and the mortgage industry has been invaluable in his current role.

“Each of our team members, including myself, has a mix of both investing and operating experience,” he said. “From the third-party feedback that we’ve gotten, including for myself, [it’s] really just being able to have frank operational conversations with management teams, especially during initial management meetings,” he added.

He places a lot of importance on Presidio’s team dynamic and culture.

“We have a very thorough recruiting process,” he said. “If we just kind of start from the top of the organization, with our three managing partners, and one of our MDs, we’ve evolved, we’ve worked together in one capacity or another for over a decade. We know and respect each other styles. We’re not all similar as well, which is quite helpful. And I think just seeing that kind of interaction at the top of the organization is very helpful for anyone else that we bring in.”

Beyond finding the right team members, Masaya said that it’s also essential to have the right mix of people with different skillsets. But what guarantees success in private equity? He believes being “genuine and open” with portfolio companies from the start is critical.

“It’s really just coming down to being honest, transparent, and open with folks upfront, regardless of who the constituency is,” he said, providing a lesson he says he has learned over his career: “If you treat people well from the outset, they tend to treat you well later.”

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By Lou Sokolovskiy, Founder & CEO at Opus Connect
June 2022