The Harvard law graduate has 20 years of private equity experience and will launch Evercore’s permanent capital business.

Neil Shah will join Evercore’s Investment Banking business as a Senior Managing Director in its Advisory practice.

Shah will focus on advising financial sponsor clients in the firm’s New York office. He will also launch and lead Evercore’s permanent capital business. The hiring confirms that Evercore will push into the world of special purpose acquisition companies, or SPACs.

[A SPAC is a listed special purpose acquisition company that issues capital via an IPO to acquire other companies]

Shah has worked as an advisor for 20 years. His most recent position was Managing Director with Citi. He founded and ran the company’s Alternative Capital Markets business. During his stint at Citi, he also ran the firm’s Private Capital Markets business.

“Neil has strong, well-established relationships throughout the financial sponsor industry, and he has served as a trusted and strategic advisor to many of the largest sponsors globally,” said Ralph Schlosstein, Evercore’s President and CEO in a statement. “We are confident he will be a superb addition to our global advisory team.”

Neil Shah on Joining Evercore

“I’m very excited to join Evercore,” Shah said in a press release. “The Firm’s approach to providing advice and its M&A, underwriting, distribution, trading, and research capabilities are an excellent fit with the needs of the clients that I cover. I look forward to bringing Evercore’s differentiated capabilities and approach to them.”

Prior to his stint at Citi, he was KKR’s head of equity capital markets. But his primary focus centers on SPACs. According to Yahoo!, Shah has completed more than 35 SPAC IPOs, over 30 SPAC Mergers and over 15 SPAC PIPE transactions since 2005.

In addition, Shah graduated from Harvard Law School and the University of Ottawa.

He is also a Chartered Financial Analyst.