From data to decisions: how a strong data foundation unlocks opportunity for BCI Private Equity 

AI is transforming how institutional investors operate — but the tools and models are only as powerful as the data foundation beneath them. At BCI, our technology and data teams are embedded within the business, working in partnership with investment professionals to build the infrastructure, expertise, and trust needed to unlock the full potential of AI and other emerging technologies. 

From portfolio monitoring and optimization to deal pipelines, due diligence, and value creation, BCI Private Equity processes significant volumes of information every day. Abtin Djavadifar, Senior Manager – Technology Solutions, Valentyn Shmygelskyy, Director – Private Equity Finance, and Rob Romei, Manager – Private Equity Operations share how their collaboration on data and analytics is expanding what’s possible.  

From left to right: Abtin Djavadifar, Valentyn Shmygelskyy, and Rob Romei

Q:  What does embedding data experts in the business help achieve? 

Abtin Djavadifar: Understanding first-hand how the asset class operates, the way they think about problems, and what insights inform a decision, is what enables us to deliver solutions that investment professionals actually trust and use. That business context, combined with our engineering and AI expertise, also helps us spot new opportunities.  

Rob Romei: The speed and agility that comes with working side by side. Instead of submitting a service request and waiting for a solution, Abtin and team are included in the discovery and ideation process, where they have quickly grasped our workflows. With $36.1 billion in global AUM, managing data with a “one team” mindset means we move from idea to implementation faster, benefitting the portfolio and ultimately our clients.  

Valentyn Shmygelskyy: Technology on its own is rarely a differentiator. The real advantage comes from pairing the right technical capability with domain expertise, trust, and shared accountability — the embedded partnership makes that possible.  

Q: What does it take to build a strong data foundation?   

Abtin Djavadifar: Our work is like an iceberg. People experience the reports, dashboards, and AI-powered tools, but they don’t see what it takes below the surface to make the outputs reliable and actionable. At BCI, our Enterprise Data Platform (EDP) serves as our foundation and brings the organization’s most critical data together in one place, providing a single source of truth. That lets us put data to work quickly, knowing it’s accurate and consistent, and it’s what makes scaling AI possible.  

Creating a strong foundation is a continuous process. This year alone, we’ve made over 500 data quality adjustments to ensure the data underneath our Private Equity solutions is cleaner than ever. We’ve also developed AI-based patterns for extracting information from unstructured documents, a shift that’s been a game changer for the scope and breadth of the data we capture. 

Valentyn Shmygelskyy: It wasn’t long ago that BCI Private Equity was storing data in Excel and Tableau, working largely in isolation. Today, an executive sitting in an investment meeting can generate a report that covers an entire fund in detail, including GP data, internal meeting notes, CRM insights, and supplementary analytics — all in one place and on demand, giving them better information to make decisions. Behind that big picture view is all the foundational work: the team learning our business, ensuring high-quality inputs, connecting data sources, integrating AI, and packaging it for an investment professional. 

Q: What is an example of how the partnership is unlocking value for BCI Private Equity? 

Rob Romei: One major focus has been extracting more insight from our unstructured data. We worked with our Investment Technology & Data team to systematically organize documents like PDFs, so AI tools can return the right information. Fund reports, transaction notices, and GP updates used to come with a quarter-long lag before we could generate insights or the data itself was untracked. Automation has unlocked this capability, giving us a better real-time view of what’s really going on in the portfolio. 

Abtin Djavadifar: On the value creation side, we supported the development of an AI-powered system that analyzes potential relationships across our portfolio companies to help identify collaboration opportunities. The tool draws data from our EDP and publicly available information, then provides summarized insights to the teams.  

Valentyn Shmygelskyy: Another example is our CRM. As an active asset manager, deal and relationship intelligence are key to staying competitive, and previously our system was functional but limited — manual entry, siloed data, and no real-time visibility. We implemented a new CRM, and Abtin’s team connected it to BCI’s broader AI and analytics tools. Now our deal teams use it daily, opening up use cases like automated pipeline tracking and AI-powered queries we couldn’t have managed before. 

The partnership keeps pushing us forward on innovation. For example, we recently began building a central repository for the institutional context that usually lives in people’s heads like how we approach a particular company, why we underwrote a deal the way we did, or what “good” looks like in our own work. Surfacing that through AI tools means the answers we get are grounded in our own history and standards, with sources we can check, and every improvement one person makes raises the floor for the whole team. 

Q: How do you keep pace with new technology and move from idea to implementation? 

Rob Romei: Having data expertise within BCI Private Equity is the difference between outsourcing a problem and co-building a solution. Abtin and I come from completely different disciplines, but we operate like co-founders in a startup: testing ideas quickly, building prototypes, and iterating as we go. We were recently batting around a use case. Within two weeks, Abtin had a working prototype, and by the next quarter, we were running the project at full speed. That pace only happens when you have shared context, trust, and a common goal. We make it fun – the gap between an idea and the technology to deliver it has closed so quickly, and we feel part of that journey.  

Abtin Djavadifar: Speed comes from not having to start from scratch every time. We already understand the business context and are at the table from the outset, so we can help shape solutions that are scalable. Keeping pace also means staying flexible. With AI evolving as fast as it is, you can’t set a roadmap for a year and not touch it. We’re always thinking about what comes next, from expanding the volume and variety of documents we process, to broadening the available data, and deploying AI agents that put insights in front of the right people before they even ask for it.  

Learn more about BCI’s approach: Data that delivers: From insight to investing advantage