CFO Forum 2026

Private equity and venture capital fundraising faces ongoing challenges amid persistent market volatility and macro uncertainty. Invest Europe activity data shows that investor commitments picked up modestly to €54 billion in the first half of 2025 from the previous six-month period, yet remain well below recent trends. Against this backdrop, we investigate the underlying dynamics in today’s constrained fundraising market. Beyond their headline performance, how can GPs differentiate themselves to attract investors? And how can CFO and COOs actively support fundraising success?

AI processes and practices are sweeping across the private equity and venture capital industry. A huge 94% of GPs questioned for Invest Europe’s 2025 Sentiment Survey planned more attention on work practices supported by AI, while around half expected AI to be a differentiator on the fundraising markets. We look at how AI innovation is really reshaping private markets’ front office activities. How are LPs assessing and rating GPs’ AI maturity and capabilities? What are the risks and opportunities for managers of different segments and sizes? And how can they turn this fast-moving technology to their advantage and stand out from the crowd?

Fragile market conditions and a tense geopolitical environment continue to weigh on traditional exit routes. Divestment activity contracted to €14 billion in the first half of 2025, Invest Europe data shows, with valuation multiples impacted regardless of the underlying health and performance of portfolio companies. While sentiment around exits is improving, alternative routes to liquidity, ranging from continuation funds to preferred equity, are presenting new options and considerations for managers and investors. When should CFOs and COOs pursue alternative exit strategies and how can they be presented to LPs as a value-enhancing opportunities? What safeguards are needed to protect and satisfy LP interests? How can firms build the operational and data infrastructure to run complex processes without disrupting day‑to‑day portfolio management? And what is the impact of these new liquidity tools on fund economics, carried interest, and alignment between existing and incoming investors?

Peer-to-peer small group, roundtable discussions for experience sharing on key topics:

1. Valuations under scrutiny: frameworks, governance and regulatory expectations

2. Interface between compliance and finance and collaboration between the CFO and CCO – best practices

3. Evergreen and semi-liquid structures: operational and financial implications

4. Digitalisation of fund operations: driving efficiency, data integrity and scalability across the finance function

5. LP Reporting - You can’t always get what you want - but do LPs find they get what they need?

6. Fund financing facilities: optimisation, risks and market evolution

7. AI in the finance function: best practices, implementation pitfalls and lessons learned from early adopters

As the private markets industry evolves and expands, mid-market managers are increasingly branching out across strategies and markets. Our panel discusses how GPs can build scalable fund architectures that can take them from single-fund setups to multi-strategy and geography platforms without losing coherence or focus, and looks into practical-yet-efficient approaches to cross-border structuring. We also investigate how GPs can accommodate LP requests for customised investment approaches, and ask how CFOs and COOs can support broader, more varied, and more complex GP strategies without impacting lean and agile investment and operations teams. 

Following on from our panel assessing the deployment and implications of AI in GP front office functions, we dig deeper into AI in middle and back-office operations with concrete examples and applications. How can AI be effectively deployed in portfolio monitoring, data processes, valuations and reporting? What solutions are available and can be implemented efficiently today? And what is near-term potential of AI for GPs? 

Invest Europe’s Head of Public Affairs gives an update on the regulatory backdrop in Europe today, focusing on the opportunities and risks for managers in the evolving environment.

The CFO/COO role has become a cornerstone of internal and outward-facing GP functions, working closely with deal teams, operations professionals, and investor relations. CFO and COO responsibilities are moving beyond financial management and accounting to strategic planning and support for value creation. How can CFOs/COOs drive the use of technology to turn a wealth of GP data into timely, decision-ready insights for partners and investors? How can they help firms oversee their approaches to leverage, fund financing and liquidity across complex and volatile markets? What role can they play in building and retaining talent that remains motivated in fast-moving, competitive and high-stress situations? In short, what skills do CFOs and COOs need to operate and win in today’s private markets landscape? 

The instinct in turbulent times is to hedge, wait, and worry. Carlos Ruiz-Hernández offers a different posture. Drawing on his experience navigating great-power competition at the highest levels of government —including managing Panama's diplomatic confrontation with U.S.-China rivalry over the Canal, and direct engagement with Washington's during the Biden-Trump administrations most senior officials— he provides a practitioner's framework for reading geopolitical risk without mistaking noise for signal. The argument is not that the world is safe. It is that Europe's institutional depth, its regulatory architecture, and the density of its transatlantic economic relationships make it the most structurally resilient investment environment in the current cycle. For private capital operating across borders whether through joint ventures, strategic partnerships, or direct investment understanding how Washington actually perceives European business, and how European firms can position themselves within that framework, is no longer a diplomatic question. It is a fiduciary one. The practitioners who read this correctly will define the next decade of private capital.