Ara Partners has appointed Masumi Waida as chief financial officer. Waida joins from ACON Investments, a mid-market private equity firm where he also served as CFO. At Ara, Waida will lead corporate and fund finance, accounting, tax, financial reporting and treasury. He will also oversee the build-out of the firm's finance and operations function as it scales across its private equity, infrastructure and energy strategies.

Waida will lead corporate and fund finance, accounting, tax and treasury. He will build out Ara's finance and operations function. Ara manages around $10.6 billion across three strategies.

"Masumi has built and led finance functions at global investment firms through periods of significant growth, and that experience will serve Ara and our investors well," said Troy Thacker, managing partner at Ara Partners. Before ACON, Waida was a managing director and chief financial officer of the Mount Kellett Funds at Fortress Investment Group. Earlier in his career, he was a vice president at Lehman Brothers, where he oversaw a range of private equity and hedge fund products. He holds a bachelor of commerce degree from the University of Alberta and is a Chartered Professional Accountant, Chartered Accountant.

Founded in 2017, Ara is a private markets firm focused on decarbonizing the industrial economy. It invests in the middle market through private equity, infrastructure and energy strategies, and operates from Houston, Boston, Dublin and Washington, DC. As of June 30, 2026, the firm had around $10.6 billion in assets under management.