Mergers & Acquisitions names the 2023 Most Influential Women in Mid-Market M&A, including Mizzen Capital’s Elizabeth Karter.

Tell us about yourself.
I started my career at Morgan Stanley in the financial institutions group. Then I bought a small manufacturing company, grew it and sold it to a strategic buyer and, as CFO, did the same with a software company. After those two successful exits, I developed angel investing groups until I started to manage credit funds for a fund platform. After successfully managing five credit funds, I launched Mizzen Capital as a credit fund with Marilyn Adler.

How did you further your firm’s ESG goals?
Mizzen published an impact report that reviewed the ESG performance of its portfolio companies and tracked job creation, demographic diversity in workforces and carbon reduction. This ESG metrics exercise was new to many of our portfolio companies and proved a valuable effort in focusing them on these issues.

How are you a champion of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI)?
Mizzen Capital is a 100 percent women and minority-owned fund. As such, we are inherently committed to DEI and making it a priority. One visible step we took to promote inclusion, was to allow every team member to choose their own 10 “federal holidays.” For example, this might mean that some members of our team will work on Christmas and will choose to take off Diwali or Rosh Hashanah instead. Allowing people to celebrate their cultural priorities is a demonstration of respect and inclusion.

For the full list of 2023 Most Influential Women in Mid-Market M&A, see here.