Bio

Troy Smildzins is a founder and Managing Partner of Carmelina Capital Partners. He has more than 20 years of experience investing in and advising rapidly growing private companies across a broad range of industries. Prior to joining Carmelina, Troy was a Partner at Seidler Equity Partners, a global investment firm with over $2.0 billion of capital under management. Troy started his career at Crowell, Weedon & Co., a boutique investment bank in Los Angeles. He later joined the Corporate Finance group at Arthur Andersen, LLP, where he was promoted to Manager in 2001. Following the dissolution of Arthur Andersen in 2002, Troy joined members of his former team in starting the Los Angeles Corporate Finance practice at KPMG. Troy received an MBA with honors from the Anderson School at UCLA, and a BS in Business with an emphasis on Finance and Marketing from The Marshall School of Business at USC. Troy believes that private equity gets a bad name for good reasons: high leverage, short-term thinking, big egos, and sharp elbows. Troy founded Carmelina with Kevin to be the antithesis of traditional private equity.