Team & Advisors | Align Private Capital

Leadership

Founders & principals.

Anna Nekoranec

Co-Founder & CEO

Anna co-founded Align in 2014 with Robert Blabey and a leading Florida-based family to address the ultra high net worth alternative investment market, and launched Align’s first fund with a single LP in 2019. Prior to Align, Anna spent over 20 years working with ultra high net worth families on direct investments and at private equity and venture capital firms including Investor Growth Capital, the Safeguard International Fund and CMS Companies. She also worked at the Brookings Institution and the NASD. Anna holds an MBA from Wharton and a BA from the University of Virginia. She is a contributing author to The Complete Direct Investing Handbook and a co-author of How to Buy a Business: Entrepreneurship through Acquisition. Anna has served on the Board of Trustees for the Jefferson Scholarship Foundation, chaired the Walentas Scholarship at the University of Virginia, serves on the Investment Committee for Sarasota Memorial Hospital, and is a Fortune Most Powerful Women in the World Conference Delegate.

Robert Blabey

Co-Founder

For the ten years prior to forming Align, Rob served as Chief Investment Officer for two large single-family offices (the Collier and Statler families) and for a multi-family office specializing in the alternative investment vertical. In each role he managed both public-market and private investing initiatives for families with sophisticated requirements and diversified holdings. Before the single-family space, he was an investment partner at Trident Partners, a private equity and hedge fund firm. Rob began his career in the International High Yield Investment Banking and Capital Markets Division of Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette in New York and London, and prior to that in the International Capital Markets Group at Chase Manhattan Bank. He is a contributing author to The Complete Direct Investing Handbook and a graduate of Hamilton College.

The team

Operations, technology & relationships.

Mark Mattheys

CFO & COO

Mark began his career at Robert Fleming & Co in London before transferring to New York as Chief Operating Officer for North and South America. He later served Crédit Agricole Group as COO in the Americas for the CLSA Emerging Markets division and as Group COO based in Hong Kong. Mark has extensive experience establishing and managing businesses across North and South America, Europe, Africa and Asia. He holds a Bachelor of Accounting Science with Honors from the University of South Africa and is a qualified South African Chartered Accountant, CA (SA).

Bengt Niebuhr

CTO

Bengt is responsible for security, risk and technology at Align. He began his career in the German federal service and then held leadership positions in security, administration and technology at Metallgesellschaft AG, the Safeguard International Fund and LBK Capital LLC. Bengt holds a master’s degree in computer science and business from VWA at Goethe University.

Puja Dhanraj

Head of Investor Relations

Puja began her career at UBS as a real estate investment banker before joining Warburg Pincus, the global private equity firm, where she helped raise capital across its private equity funds as a Director in the Fundraising and Investor Relations Group. She graduated from the University of Pennsylvania and the Wharton School with a B.A. in International Studies and a B.S. in Economics, and was one of only eight undergraduates selected to matriculate directly into Wharton’s graduate program, where she also earned her MBA. A native Floridian, Puja is actively involved in her community.

Tara Horne

Chief Compliance Officer

Tara has served as a compliance professional in financial services for nearly 14 years and holds the Series 7 and 24 licenses. She has extensive experience leading firms through the IA and BD registration process and developing robust control and operational frameworks for a range of financial institutions. A Certified Anti-Money Laundering Specialist (CAMS) and Investment Adviser Certified Compliance Professional (IACCP), Tara has been a panel speaker at industry conferences. She graduated from California State University, Long Beach with a BS in Business Marketing and Finance.

Advisors

An accomplished advisory bench.

William A. Owens

Advisor

William A. Owens is co-founder and executive chairman of Red Bison Technology Group and chairman of several technology ventures. He has served on the boards of numerous public companies, was chairman of the board of CenturyLink (now Lumen) and SAP USA, and from 2007 to 2015 was Chairman and Senior Partner of AEA Investors Asia and Vice Chairman of the NYSE for Asia. Earlier, he was CEO of Nortel and President of Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC).

A retired four-star U.S. Navy Admiral, Owens served as Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the second-ranking U.S. military officer, with responsibility for restructuring the armed forces in the post-Cold War era. He is a 1962 honor graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Oxford University, and a master’s in management from George Washington University. He is the author of High Seas, Lifting the Fog of War and China-US 2039: The Endgame?

Dr. Hector Ruiz

Advisor

Dr. Hector Ruiz has helped build and guide top-tier global technology companies for nearly three decades, including Texas Instruments, Motorola and AMD. As CEO of AMD, he spearheaded the 50×15 initiative, an aggressive goal to connect half the world to the internet by 2015, and received numerous honors, including being named one of FORTUNE’s Top 25 Business Leaders. He is the author of Slingshot: AMD’s Fight to Free an Industry from the Ruthless Grip of Intel.

Today, Hector serves as founder and director of ANSI Capital LLC and advises individuals, corporations and governments on breakthrough technology initiatives. He is a Trustee Emeritus of Rice University, has served on the boards of Spansion, Darden Restaurants, Eastman Kodak and the Semiconductor Industry Association, and was a member of President George W. Bush’s Council of Advisors for Science and Technology.

Connect with our team.

Reach out to learn more about Align Private Capital and our approach to direct investing for single family offices.

Get in touch → Our approach

The people behind the partnership.