Stephan Nicoleau is an investor, advisor, and founder with more than 15 years experience investing and operating in social and environmental impact. He is a partner and managing director at FullCycle, a private equity firm focused on accelerating climate-critical infrastructure solutions. He heads capital solutions for the firm, managing institutional relationships and the firm’s capital formation for its fund vehicles.
Stephan began his management consultant career as a founding member of Coalition Ltd., a boutique strategy consultancy that advised the executive management teams of the top global investment banks. Stephan worked closely with the senior management of JP Morgan, Credit Suisse, and Barclays Capital, growing the firm from pre-revenue to over $50M in fewer than four years. Stephan built and led the firm’s most successful consulting business for fund managers, consultants, and family offices, which he grew until the firm’s eventual sale to S&P.
In founding Critical Value Advisors (CVA), Stephan built an advisory practice that served private investors managing several billion in assets, working to source emerging managers and impact investment opportunities globally. CVA structured and advised investments in venture, real estate, and infrastructure, playing an integral role in identifying investment opportunities that would achieve environmental, social, and financial returns for private and institutional investors.
In 2016, Stephan founded LaGuardia Development Partners (LDP), a minority-owned infrastructure financing vehicle focused on the redevelopment of LaGuardia Airport, a US$5 billion project. LDP was integral in reshaping the public private partnership (P3) to be more inclusive of minority and women-owned funders and operators. Leading this multi-stakeholder effort changed municipal infrastructure development in the region by stewarding new investment to large-scale infrastructure projects and demonstrating the benefits of inclusion in major P3s at the national level.
In addition to serving on the board of Project Drawdown, Stephan serves on the boards of Monument Lab, a public arts studio leading national conversations about public space and history; and Future of Cities, a regenerative placemaking coalition focused on sustainable urban development. Stephan is an active mentor to entrepreneurs in his community, lives in New York City, and is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania.