Editors’ Note

Ann Chung is a Senior Managing Director and Global Head of Consumer for Blackstone Growth based in New York. Since joining Blackstone in 2020, Chung has led investments in Oatly, Spanx, Supergoop!, and Weee. Prior to joining Blackstone, Chung held roles at Fremont Private Holdings, the direct investing arm of the Bechtel family office, and J.H. Whitney Capital Partners where she led all consumer and consumer-impacted investments. She has also held positions with Swander Pace Capital, L Catterton, and Wachovia Securities and served on the boards of Alphia, Accupac, and Merrick Pet Care. Chung currently serves on the Board of Directors of Oatly, Spanx, and Supergoop! She received her MBA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and her BS from the McIntire School of Commerce at the University of Virginia.

Firm Brief

Blackstone (blackstone.com) is the world’s largest alternative asset manager. The firm seeks to deliver compelling returns for institutional and individual investors by strengthening the companies in which it invests. Its more than $1.1 trillion in assets under management include global investment strategies focused on real estate, private equity, infrastructure, life sciences, growth equity, credit, real assets, secondaries, and hedge funds.

What excited you about the opportunity to join Blackstone and made you feel it was the right fit?

Blackstone’s scale and ability to drive value for its investors. With $331 billion in AUM and a 35+ history, our private equity platform is the largest in the world. This means we can offer consumer businesses access to a huge network of portfolio companies, decades of operational expertise, and a robust toolkit of value creation capabilities, from procurement and talent to data science and brand strategy. The opportunity to apply these tools in a growth equity context was incredibly exciting to me; the opportunity to do so alongside some of the best investors in the business was even more compelling. I joined the firm in 2020 and have consistently been impressed by the caliber of the people and the scale of our portfolio.

How do you describe Blackstone’s culture and values?

Entrepreneurial, hardworking, and highly intellectual. We, at Blackstone, are constantly innovating. Whether it’s building new businesses, innovating new asset classes or evolving its investment strategy to keep abreast of changing investor needs, our people are constantly looking for new ways to deliver value. That keeps us busy but also interesting. When someone offers an idea, our teams interrogate it and refine it, striving for the most intellectually honest answer. We also work hard to be good partners alongside the management teams we invest behind. The work at Blackstone is demanding, challenging, and stimulating.

What do you feel have been the keys to Blackstone’s industry leadership?

Apart from the remarkable people, it’s the scale. Blackstone’s portfolio is enormous, spanning more than 240 companies and 12,700 real estate assets worldwide. This generates data and insights that lets us identify trends as they emerge and adapt our strategy to invest behind them. The scale also provides us access to a vast network of professionals that provide unique deal flow, quick and thorough perspectives on diligence, and differentiated support for our portfolio companies. As investors in the consumer sector, my team’s job is to really understand the brand leaders in the space. Our scale also allows us to see around corners and gives us strong insights on macroeconomic topics, such as early indications of commodity price changes, port strikes, wage pressures, and tariffs.

Will you provide an overview of your role and areas of focus?

As the Global Head of Consumer at Blackstone Growth, I look for the next generation of consumer brands – category-creating companies that change the conversation in their sector. Supergoop! is a great example. The company was founded on a mission to change the way the world thinks about sunscreen. Because of the company’s amazingly innovative products, Supergoop! quickly made a splash in the skincare space. By the time Blackstone invested in the company, the business was wildly successful – it just needed a partner that could help it write the next chapter. We look for companies where we try to preserve the best parts of what make them successful such as Supergoop!’s incredible product development capabilities and creative marketing, but have scaled beyond a startup into a healthy, thriving business where we can help build the infrastructure for long-term, sustainable growth.

What are the keys to being successful as investors in the consumer sector?

A strong historical financial profile is table stakes. We look for companies that have proven product-market fit. Specifically for consumer brands, we look across three pillars: product, brand, and purpose. We find the best category creators are the ones that have disrupted the market with highly differentiated product. Repeat purchase tends to be a key indicator of strong product receptivity. We also look for brands that have emotional connection or the ability to build emotional connection. We conduct consumer surveys, focus groups, and scrape the internet for quantitative and quality brand feedback. And finally, we look for businesses that stand for more. I believe building a better future for all of us correlates strongly with the best consumer brands.

How critical is it for Blackstone to build a diverse and inclusive workforce?

It’s essential. We believe that teams of individuals with varied backgrounds and experiences make better business decisions, and between year-end 2020 to year-end 2022, we doubled the number of women in senior leadership levels globally and increased senior leaders from underrepresented groups in the U.S. by two-and-a-half times – a testament to the strength of our conviction. Getting a wider range of representation allows you to identify opportunities and see the potential in companies others might overlook. I strongly believe this for the consumer sector as we all bring our own lived-in experiences to the table and can provide a different lens, particularly for sourcing new opportunities.

Do you feel that there are strong opportunities for women to grow and lead in the industry?

Very much. I look around Blackstone Growth, and I see women doing incredible work – Yifat Oron, for instance, leads our growth and tech investments across Israel, and Katie Storer and I work closely together on marquee deals like SPANX and Supergoop!.

For my own part, I’ve repeatedly been given opportunities to lead investments in some remarkable consumer brands – both here at Blackstone and in prior roles. My hope is that this increasing visibility unlocks even more opportunities for women in investing. We bring important perspective to the table, particularly in the consumer space, where women influence 70 to 80 percent of all spending and by 2029 will control 75 percent of all discretionary spending. Getting women in even more leadership roles can help us meet the consumer where they’re at.

What advice do you offer to young people beginning their careers?

Stay curious. The consumer is always changing, and the pace of change keeps getting faster and faster. If you assume you have it all figured out, you’ll miss out on opportunities and you’ll forfeit chances to connect with your colleagues. I learn so much from the folks I work with day in and day out, and as I approach five years at Blackstone, I’m confident that will only continue.