Cynosure Group Team

Randal Quarles has spent his career in an unusually broad range of senior roles, in which success has required combining a deep analytical understanding of complex systems with the practical judgment involved in managing risk. He believes this approach is one of the key ways in which The Cynosure Group is creating value. Before bringing together the group that founded Cynosure in 2014, Randy’s prominent career included heading the leading financial services legal practice in the United States, at Davis Polk & Wardwell, where he was involved in a number of the largest financial mergers ever completed; many years as a partner at the Carlyle Group, one of the world’s leading private equity firms, where he helped lead a number of firmwide initiatives, including the development of the firm’s Financial Services Fund complex; and holding senior financial policy positions in four different presidential administrations over the last 35 years, including six confirmations by the U.S. Senate, most recently as Vice Chairman of the Federal Reserve. In 2020, he was one of the key participants in the Fed’s crisis response credited with preventing the collapse of the U.S. and global economy (as detailed in the books Limitless and Trillion Dollar Triage). Randy maintains that studying philosophy at Columbia University (from which he received an A.B. summa cum laude in 1981) first led him to one of his guiding principles in investment and in life: many things that might seem simple on the surface are, in fact, expressions of complex, sometimes hidden, structures, and those structures—whether they underlie the profitability of a company or the stability of the entire financial system—can be improved once they are understood.