Twenty years inside institutional capital. Now building the technology that is rewriting it.
Book Dhaval
Dhaval Kapadia has spent twenty years bringing new things into institutions that are built, deliberately and correctly, to resist new things.
He joined Citi in 2005 and stayed until 2010, working in product development and in the chief of staff's office. That tenure covered 2008 and 2009, which means he watched the global financial crisis unfold not from a screen but from inside one of the largest financial institutions in the world. It is not an experience you forget, and it permanently changed how he thinks about what institutions do when they are frightened.
He then helped sell the private equity group he was part of to Apollo Global Management, and joined Apollo in asset management and new product development. In 2012 he spun out on his own and founded REAM Partners, an asset management consulting firm. A top-five global alternative asset manager became his first client, and his anchor client. He ran the firm for seven years.
The work at REAM is the reason he does what he does now. He oversaw investor reporting, portfolio monitoring, and financial compilation across two portfolios totalling more than $300 million in institutional and retail capital. He tracked the investments, compiled the financials, wrote the narratives, and stood up in front of investors at annual meetings to explain them.
That is precisely the work artificial intelligence is now doing. He did it by hand, for seven years, and he knows exactly where the machine is right and exactly where it is confidently wrong.
Today he is co-founder of Blue Skies AI Studio, a venture studio that builds and ships AI-first enterprise software, and Chairman of TiE LA Angels, one of Southern California's most active angel groups. He is Chairman of the Investors Institute. He hosts Enterprise AI Insider, a weekly show for the executives who have to make this decision.
His central argument is that AI is not failing in financial services for technical reasons. Roughly 95% of enterprise AI pilots produce no measurable impact on the P&L, and model quality is not the cause. In private capital the failure has a specific shape, which he calls the Trust Perimeter: the invisible boundary a firm draws around its LP data, its deal files, its diligence, and the judgment of its partners. The boundary exists for excellent reasons. It is also the reason nothing lands, because AI is only useful inside it and nobody in the building is authorized to move it.
He works with leadership teams to redraw that boundary deliberately, with governance, so that intelligence can operate inside it. He is based in Los Angeles.
“I have spent twenty years getting new things through the defenses of large financial institutions. From the inside, as an advisor, and now as the person building the thing they are defending against.”
| Years | Organization | What it was |
|---|---|---|
| 2005 – 2010 | Citi | Product development, and the office of the chief of staff. Five years inside one of the world's largest financial institutions, including 2008 and 2009. He watched the crisis from the inside. |
| 2010 | The sale | Helped sell the private equity group he was part of to Apollo Global Management, then went to work for the acquirer. |
| 2010 – 2012 | Apollo Global Management | Asset management and new product development. |
| 2012 – 2019 | REAM Partners | His own asset management consulting firm. A top-five global alternative asset manager was the first and anchor client. Oversaw investor reporting, portfolio monitoring, and financial compilation across two portfolios totalling more than $300 million in institutional and retail capital. Wound down in 2019. |
| 2019 – 2022 | Los Angeles | Relocated to California. Advised small businesses through SBProfit. Became an active Charter Member of TiE Los Angeles. |
| 2022 – present | Investors Institute | Founded September 2022. Chairman. |
| 2023 – present | TiE LA Angels | Joined the board of TiE Los Angeles in early 2023. Now Chairman of TiE LA Angels. |
| Present | Blue Skies AI Studio | Co-founder. Builds and ships AI-first enterprise software. Not advises on it. Builds it. |
Blue Skies AI Studio — Co-Founder
TiE LA Angels — Chairman
TiE Los Angeles — Board of Directors, Charter Member
Investors Institute — Chairman
Enterprise AI Insider — Host