Carter F. Bales, Chairman & Managing Partner, co-founded NewWorld in June 2009. Before NewWorld, he was Managing Partner Emeritus at The Wicks Group of Companies, a private equity firm focused on the information industries in the United States. He co-founded Wicks in 1989 and was a Managing Partner until assuming the Emeritus title in late 2006. As a Managing Partner, he was involved in all its investment and management activities and served on the Board of Directors of all of its portfolio companies. He was a member of the Firm’s Investment Committee and Executive Committee and was deeply involved in matters of Firm strategy. Mr. Bales was also involved in helping selected portfolio companies address business-scaling challenges of growth and margin management across the economic cycle. After becoming Managing Partner Emeritus in late 2006, Mr. Bales continued to serve on the Investment Committee of the Firm and the Board of Directors of many of its portfolio companies. Wicks worked on a team basis with the senior members of the Firm involved in all investments. To date, Wicks has managed $980 million in investment capital across three funds.
Mr. Bales was a Director of McKinsey & Company from 1978 to 1998, where he held senior leadership positions, including founding the consultancy’s practices in environmental management, information industries, and state and local government, and leading the information technology practice. He was a member of McKinsey’s Board of Directors for 7 years and, early in that period, led a project to redefine the Firm’s strategy. He left McKinsey in 1998 but continues as an Emeritus Director and Senior Advisor to McKinsey on environmental matters.
Early in his career, Mr. Bales served as Assistant Budget Director (Acting) for The City of New York, where he led the development of New York City’s air pollution, solid waste management, and water supply programs, in addition to developing the City’s program planning and budgeting (PPBS) system.
Mr. Bales has extensive experience in helping businesses grow sales, improve profitability, strengthen competitive strategies, and improve and scale operations through his work at McKinsey and The Wicks Group. Both careers focused heavily on strengthening business operations and helping companies build value for stakeholders.
Mr. Bales has been active in environmental matters for more than 35 years. In recent years, he has focused on environmental economics and how energy efficiency improvements can be achieved in cost-effective ways. In 2007, he worked with McKinsey to prepare the report entitled, Reducing U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions: How Much at What Cost? In 2008 and 2009, he worked with Project Catalyst and other initiatives in framing the economics of environmental improvement strategies in the United States and elsewhere.
Mr. Bales is a recognized expert in the environmental field and has published a number of articles and is frequently an invited speaker on the topic. His article, “Containing Climate Change” (co-authored with Rick Duke), appeared in Foreign Affairs (September-October 2008). He serves on the boards of a number of leading environmental organizations, including The Center for Market Innovation at the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Advisory Council to Resources for the Future, and The Nature Conservancy. He chairs the Leadership Council of the Clean Economy Network.
Mr. Bales is a director of Cleaire Advanced Emission Controls, LLC and Coolerado Corporation, NewWorld portfolio companies.
Mr. Bales graduated from Princeton University with a BA in Economics and holds an MBA from Harvard Business School. He received an Honorary Doctorate in Humane Letters from Skidmore College for his environmental leadership.