A trade association for limited partners in private equity has hired Eugenie “Genie” Cesar-Fabian as its first general counsel.
The Institutional Limited Partners Association brought on Cesar-Fabian last month. She was most recently chief legal officer and head of private equity at Enzo Advisors LLC, an environmental, social, and governance advisory firm.
The new job sees the veteran private funds lawyer transition from the sponsor side of the business to the limited partner and advocacy side, Cesar-Fabian said in an email. She’ll work to support the Washington-based ILPA’s “ongoing mission to engage, empower, and connect” limited partners to maximize their performance on an “individual, institutional, and collective basis,” she said.
Private equity firms, which saw distributions to limited partners plunge last year, are grappling with new rules the US Securities and Exchange Commission claims will increase transparency in the private funds industry. Hedge funds and private equity firms have sued the SEC over rules related to fees and investor expenses.
Cesar-Fabian, who spent nearly a decade in private practice at Hughes Hubbard & Reed and now-defunct Bingham McCutchen, brings to her new role additional expertise in securities law and financial services.
Eugenie “Genie” Cesar-Fabian
She was the first general counsel for financial technology platform Ethic Inc. after spending 11 years at minority-owned private equity firm Palladium Equity Partners LLC. Cesar-Fabian was a legal and compliance chief and head of ESG and sustainability at Palladium.
She continues to be a strategic adviser to BlueFlame AI LLC, a New York-based artificial intelligence platform used by investment managers that launched last year. “I serve as a sounding board for thoughts and insights into how their AI tools may benefit private market participants and serve as a resource for general private equity industry understanding,” Cesar-Fabian said.
In addition to the SEC’s private fund advisers’ rule and the ongoing legal challenge to it, Cesar-Fabian said she’ll handle “macro issues” affecting the private equity industry and limited partners, including concerns about tighter capital rules for big banks—a proposal known as Basel III endgame—and investment screening rules for China-focused investments.
Cesar-Fabian said she expects to work on ILPA’s expansion into Europe—the trade group opened a London office last year—and support its efforts to “improve negotiation dynamics and positive engagement” between limited and general partners. She’ll also handle industry guidance on topics like net asset value-based facilities, or assets backed by a fund’s investment portfolio.
On the policy front, Cesar-Fabian will work closely with ILPA’s senior director of industry affairs Neal Prunier, managing director of external affairs and sustainable investing Matthew Schey, and the organization’s chief executive officer, Jennifer Choi, who has been in the role since 2022.
ILPA parted ways that year with former senior policy counsel and head of policy Christopher Hayes—now a managing partner at Capitol Asset Strategies—but hired Amar Dzaferovic from FINRA as a director of legal and regulatory affairs.
ILPA declined to discuss specific legal advisers but historically the organization has worked with several different law firms.
Hogan Lovells filed an amicus brief on ILPA’s behalf in December in the SEC dispute currently before the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. ILPA also paid $120,000 to DLA Piper in 2021 for consulting and project management work, according to a US federal tax filing by the trade group.
