Rafael builds and maintains the investor network that funds every Kestrel Ridge transaction. Because the firm raises capital deal by deal rather than from a committed fund, that network is not a marketing asset. It is the reason the firm can sign a letter of intent and mean it.

He joined in 2017 from BlackRock, where he spent nine years between New York and São Paulo working with private clients and family offices across the Americas. Roughly a third of the firm’s investor base today sits outside the United States, principally in Brazil, Argentina and Mexico, and Rafael is the reason that group exists.

That part of the network asks different questions than the domestic one. A family office in São Paulo is rarely benchmarking our returns against a North American median. It is asking where the money sits between commitment and closing, who holds it, what happens to a distribution when it crosses a border, and whether the structure has been tested by an auditor who signs their name to it. Rafael answers those questions before they are asked, in Portuguese or Spanish if that is easier.

He is also the internal advocate for saying no to capital. Kestrel Ridge has declined commitments twice over source-of-funds documentation that could not be completed to the standard our banking relationships require, and he considers both decisions among the better ones the firm has made.