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Marc McMorris has spent more than 25 years investing in technology companies at increasing levels of scale and autonomy. The co-founder and co-chief executive officer of Carrick Capital Partners, a San Francisco-based growth equity firm, has built a platform that has completed 48 investments in software, SaaS, transaction processing, and technology-enabled services companies. He sits on the board of Fair Isaac Corporation, the company behind the FICO credit score used in virtually every consumer lending decision in the United States. He chairs the endowment of the University of Pennsylvania. And he has done all of it while operating as one of the most senior Black executives in the American private equity industry, a sector where Black professionals remain severely underrepresented at the partner level.
McMorris earned his undergraduate degree in economics from the University of Pennsylvania's College of Arts and Sciences, then stayed at Penn to complete his MBA at the Wharton School of Business, concentrating in finance and accounting. The decision to attend Wharton was not incidental. The school has produced more private equity executives than almost any other business program in the country, and McMorris entered a pipeline that would connect him to the most powerful investment firms on Wall Street.
His first professional role was at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the most operationally significant of the twelve regional reserve banks and the institution responsible for implementing monetary policy, supervising financial institutions, and maintaining the stability of the financial system. Working at the New York Fed gave McMorris a structural understanding of how capital moves through the American economy, knowledge that would later inform how he evaluated companies and industries as a private equity investor.
He left the Fed and joined Morgan Stanley as an associate in the telecom and media mergers and acquisitions group. The role placed him at the center of one of the most active deal environments of the late 1990s, when telecommunications deregulation and the internet boom were driving a wave of consolidation across media and technology. McMorris advised on transactions involving complex capital structures, regulatory considerations, and strategic positioning decisions that would determine which companies survived the coming market correction.
His next move took him to Goldman Sachs, where he served as a vice president in the technology group. At Goldman, McMorris deepened his expertise in technology investing and built relationships with the founders, executives, and institutional investors who populated the upper tier of Silicon Valley's financial ecosystem. The combination of Morgan Stanley's M&A training and Goldman's technology focus gave him a skill set that was rare among investors of any background and exceptionally rare among Black professionals in the industry.
In 1999, McMorris joined General Atlantic, one of the most respected global private equity firms focused on technology growth investing. The firm managed approximately $15 billion in assets, and McMorris rose to managing director, a position he held from 2003 to 2011. He led General Atlantic's Palo Alto office from 2007 to 2011, overseeing the firm's West Coast investment activities during a period that included the global financial crisis and the subsequent recovery that reshaped the technology landscape. At General Atlantic, McMorris developed the investment philosophy that would define his later work: identifying high-growth software companies that had proven their business models but needed capital and operational expertise to reach their full potential.
In 2012, McMorris co-founded Carrick Capital Partners with Jim Madden, a veteran technology executive who had built and led Exigen Group, a global IT services company. The two named the firm after the carrick timbers placed at the heart of a sailing ship, a structural element that holds the vessel together under stress. Carrick was designed to be the structural partner that growth-stage technology companies needed to navigate the transition from promising startup to scaled enterprise.
The firm launched with a focus on software, SaaS, transaction processing, and technology-enabled services. Carrick's investment range typically fell between $10 million and $50 million per deal, with a sweet spot around $25 million, targeting companies valued between $50 million and $3 billion. That range placed Carrick in the growth equity segment of the market, above early-stage venture capital but below the mega-buyout firms.
Over the next decade, Carrick completed 48 investments and recorded 13 portfolio exits. The exits included Exiger, a global regulatory and financial crime compliance company; Saama, a clinical data analytics platform; and InstaMed, a healthcare payments technology company acquired by JPMorgan Chase. Each exit represented the successful execution of Carrick's thesis: invest in companies with strong technology, proven revenue, and clear paths to operational improvement, then provide capital and strategic guidance to accelerate growth.
McMorris elevated to co-CEO in March 2021, sharing the title with Madden while co-chairing the investment committee. In that role, he is directly involved in the identification, selection, and post-investment growth guidance of every company in the portfolio. He works with CEOs, executive teams, and boards, applying his understanding of sales strategy, capital structure optimization, and corporate governance to help portfolio companies create long-term enterprise value.
His influence extends well beyond Carrick. McMorris serves as chairman of the University of Pennsylvania's endowment, one of the largest in the country with assets exceeding $21 billion. The role places him at the apex of institutional asset management, overseeing allocation decisions that affect the university's financial health for generations. He also serves as vice chairman of Penn's board of trustees, giving him direct input into the strategic direction of one of the country's most prominent research universities.
His board seat at Fair Isaac Corporation positions him inside one of the most consequential companies in American consumer finance. FICO scores influence mortgage approvals, credit card limits, auto loan terms, and insurance pricing for hundreds of millions of consumers. McMorris serves on the audit committee, providing oversight on financial reporting and internal controls of a company whose products touch nearly every American household.
McMorris's philanthropic work reflects the same institutional orientation. He chairs the advisory board of Sponsors for Educational Opportunity in San Francisco, providing mentorship and career development for underrepresented students pursuing finance careers. He serves on the investment committee and board of the James Irvine Foundation, one of California's largest private foundations focused on expanding economic opportunity for low-income workers. He is also involved with Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights.
In an industry where Black investors managing institutional capital at the growth equity level remain an extreme rarity, McMorris has built a career spanning the Federal Reserve, Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, General Atlantic, and his own firm. He has invested in companies valued collectively in the billions, governed an endowment worth over $21 billion, and served on the board of a public company whose products shape the financial lives of nearly every American.
