Black Kite Partners nabs MST's chief operating officer

Black Kite Partners has nabbed MST Financial's inaugural chief operating officer Karen Sercombe to join the firm in the same role.

Sercombe joins the Australian private equity firm after almost eight years with MST Financial. Prior to that she was at Credit Suisse for 10 years, working across private banking, investment banking and equity research.

Black Kite Partners helps scale technology and healthcare businesses with a revenue of over $10 million, providing anywhere between $30 million to $150 million in equity investments. It has over $1.3 billion in funds under advice as of December 2025.

"Karen joins us as chief operating officer with deep experience building and scaling financial services businesses," Black Kite Partners said.

"She was the founding chief operating officer of MST Financial and brings a decade of senior leadership at Credit Suisse across private banking, equities, and investment banking."

Three former IFM Investors executives launched the private equity investment manager earlier  this year, with backing from Scarcity Partners.

Last October, IFM announced it was dumping its private equity strategy to prioritise global investments, explaining it had struggled to scale the local strategy. Some $1 billion was invested in the private equity portfolio, representing 0.4% of IFM's allocation.

Founders David Odgers, Adrian Kerley and Stuart Wardman-Browne carved out IFM's former private equity team to launch the new firm after working together for several years.

Wardman-Browne spent nearly a decade at IFM as the head of private markets. Odgers and Kerly spent more than seven years as executive directors in the unit.