30 January 2019 4 Min Read
NCP Spotlight: Carter Karras
New Capital Partners has been fortunate to begin 2019 by bringing on some wonderful talent. Carter Karras, our new Accounting Manager, is one of the recent additions to the NCP family. We’re excited to welcome Carter (and his very cute dog) to the team. Now, if we could just get our building to be dog-friendly…
New Capital Partners:
What was your professional background and experience before coming to NCP?
Carter Karras:
I started with PwC in the assurance practice in September 2014 after graduating from the Auburn master’s program in July. I spent four years there, primarily working on the Medical Properties Trust audit. MPT is a publicly traded real estate investment trust (REIT), specializing in hospitals and other medical real estate throughout the United States and Europe. In between the MPT audit, I also worked on the Cooper/T. Smith audit, which is a maritime services company (they operate tugboats and help load and unload ships) in Mobile.
NCP: Tell us about your educational experience, including what you enjoyed doing outside of class in your free time.
CK: I started at Auburn in 2009 in the engineering program, but quickly figured out that wasn’t for me. I changed majors after my freshman year and went over to the business school and started in the accounting program. At the beginning of my junior year, I joined Beta Alpha Psi (accounting honors program) and started doing a lot of recruiting with different accounting firms. That’s how I ended up in Birmingham with PwC. I did a three-month internship with PwC during my senior year and then started in the master’s program after I graduated undergrad. The last semester of grad school, I sat for the CPA exam and passed all four parts of the exam by the end of April 2014.
For fun, I really just hung out with friends and did a lot of sports-related stuff. I was in a social fraternity (ATO) and played intramural sports with friends. I also played a lot of golf. I’m a big Auburn fan too, so I spent a lot of my time going to football, basketball and baseball games.
NCP: How did you choose to follow the career path that led you to where you are today?
CK: I chose accounting after switching from the engineering school because I was always interested in business and felt like I could do a lot of different things in the business world with an accounting degree. I ended up at PwC in Birmingham through the recruiting stuff I mentioned earlier, and chose them mainly due to the people that I met. I built some good relationships with people from PwC and felt like starting my career in public accounting with a Big 4 firm would give me great experience and a lot of opportunity later on in my career.
NCP: What drew you to New Capital Partners?
CK: I was initially drawn to NCP due to some very positive things I’d heard about the firm from friends and family members that worked in the private equity industry. After learning a little bit more about the company, I was excited about the opportunity to be actively involved helping to grow small businesses and learning from people that have had a successful history of creating a lot of value for their investors and the companies they have invested in. I’ve always been interested in private equity and felt like working for NCP would be the best possible place for me to gain invaluable experience in the industry, while also doing something really rewarding.
NCP: We know you have a life outside of work too. What do you and your wife like to do for fun in Birmingham?
CK: My wife and I are lucky to have a lot friends from college that live in Birmingham, so we spend a lot of time hanging out with them going to dinner and the breweries in town. We’re also pretty active in our church. I’m a big golfer as well, so I try to do as much of that as possible. We spend a lot of our fall weekends in Auburn going to football games and my family recently got a place at Lake Martin, so we’re planning on spending a good bit of time at the lake in the future.
NCP: Rumor has it you have a pretty cute dog. Tell us more about her!
CK: We have a 3 year old Goldendoodle named Nala. She loves to play with other dogs and swim at the lake. Since we don’t have kids yet, she probably gets a little bit spoiled by us.
NCP: Finally, tell us a fun or weird fact about yourself. What’s something we don’t know about you yet?
CK:I’m a big fan of 70s and 80s music. I listen to a lot of older musicians like Hall & Oates, Fleetwood Mac, Rolling Stones, etc.