In this episode, Alice is joined by Jeremy Hocter (Holland Mountain) to explore the seven operational themes he expects to shape 2026 for private capital firms. Building on Holland Mountain’s work across a record year of operational strategy projects, Jeremy shares what he is seeing across the market, why operational leaders are feeling the pressure to do more without adding headcount, and where firms should focus to scale efficiently.

The conversation focuses in on the investor experience, faster data cycles, fund administrator benchmarking, the difference between a data warehouse and a true data platform, business ownership of data, the surge in AI point solutions and governance, and the widening divergence in the fund administration market. Jeremy closes with a clear view on what is most urgent for 2026 and why data platforms now sit at the centre of operational competitiveness.

Key takeaways

• Operational leaders are under pressure to scale without additional headcount, which puts efficiency, process design, and data-enabled workflows at the centre of 2026 priorities.
• Investor experience technology has matured, moving from early adoption to a baseline expectation that will increasingly influence fundraising competitiveness.
• The shift towards more frequent valuations and reporting is being driven by product innovation (evergreen, interval and listed structures), LP expectations, and broader market dynamics like the growth of secondaries.
• Many firms are discovering that legacy fund admin agreements and operating models are misaligned with new demands, making benchmarking and re-scoping relationships more important than ever.
• A data warehouse is infrastructure, not a full data platform. Business value depends on mastering, validation, reconciliation, usability, reporting layers and user adoption.
• Data strategy is becoming a business agenda item, not an IT project, with a growing focus on ownership, self-service and behaviour change.
• AI adoption is accelerating through vertical point solutions. The opportunity is significant, but governance and internal knowledge sharing need to catch up to avoid duplication and wasted spend.
• Fund administration is diverging: some providers are investing in modern tech and automation, while others are constrained by legacy processes and systems.