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November 19, 2025

Brookfield’s field agents | David Nowak | Ep 80

David Nowak is President of Brookfield’s Private Equity Group. He leads Brookfield’s North American private equity business and its evergreen strategy, and brings a distinctly contrarian, operations-led perspective, shaped by more than a decade inside one of the industry’s most integrated investment platforms.

We explore how Brookfield identifies essential-service businesses that are misunderstood, how it deploys its information advantage across the broader Brookfield organisation, and why a dual-sponsorship model between investors and operators produces more repeatable value creation.

Contrarian by design: buying what others misread
Brookfield avoids thematic investing. Instead, the focus is on essential products and services where perceived risk diverges from actual risk. When everyone else is saying ‘climate change’ and renewables, they bet big on nuclear. When EVs make the combustion engine look uninvestable, they think outside the box.

One deal, two owners: the pilot / co-pilot model
Every investment has two equal sponsors: an investor and an operating leader. In underwriting, the investor is “pilot” and the operator “co-pilot”. In portfolio management, the roles reverse. Both remain on the file through exit, removing the typical tension between deal teams and operators. More than half of Brookfield’s private-equity returns come from operational improvement, not leverage.

Embedded asset and field agents
 Brookfield’s operations team comprises c.35 senior operators who sit inside the private equity floor, not alongside it. And before rising to senior vice president, every investor is seconded into a portfolio company for a year, often in remote locations. The aim: develop judgement, understand day-to-day constraints, and replace spreadsheet assumptions with operational reality.

Our man in Alaska
Value creation comes from repeatable, grounded work: retooling supply chains, introducing dynamic pricing, tightening working-capital cycles, and reshaping organisational design. Brookfield’s teams seconde into companies, work shoulder-to-shoulder with management, and stay for the full journey from carve-out to maturity. The model is simple but demanding: pick the controllable levers, apply rigour daily, and compound small gains.

Culture: humility, apprenticeship, and earned responsibility
Brookfield’s open-plan layout is intentional: no offices, a flat structure, and constant exposure to how decisions are made. Young professionals are given responsibility early, but are expected to put in their 10,000 hours, learn from senior leaders, and keep politics far from their career ambitions. As David says: “You have one reputation. Spend it wisely.”

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