Why Future Standard handed its $94bn platform to former BlackRock executive Edwin Conway

Future Standard appointed Edwin Conway as chief executive officer on July 14, 2026, while co-founder Michael Forman moved into the full-time role of executive chairman. The Philadelphia-based alternative asset manager reported an estimated $94 billion in assets under management as of March 31, 2026, giving the succession considerably more strategic weight than a routine executive appointment. Conway arrives after holding senior positions across the alternatives, institutional and capital-markets businesses of BlackRock and previously leading investor relations and business development at Blackstone. Forman will remain closely involved in strategy, fund oversight, major client relationships and growth initiatives. The central test is whether the new structure can preserve founder-led continuity while giving Conway sufficient authority to integrate an increasingly broad private-markets platform.

Why has Future Standard chosen Edwin Conway to lead its next phase of private markets growth?

Conway’s appointment aligns closely with the type of organisation Future Standard is attempting to become. The company is no longer simply the wealth-distribution platform established as Franklin Square Capital Partners in 2007 and later known as FS Investments. It now combines institutional investment capabilities, private-wealth distribution, middle-market credit, private equity, real estate and digital infrastructure exposure across a widening international footprint.

Conway spent 13 years at BlackRock and held responsibility for businesses operating at a scale substantially larger than Future Standard. His roles included leading BlackRock’s approximately $350 billion alternatives operation, its equity private-markets activities and its global institutional client business. He also oversaw the global capital-markets platform supporting trillions of dollars in public and private assets. Before BlackRock, Conway spent six years at Blackstone, where his responsibilities included global investor relations and business development.

That combination matters because Future Standard’s next challenge is not simply finding more investments. It must connect investment origination, product development, fundraising, institutional relationships and private-wealth distribution without allowing the platform to become organisationally fragmented. Conway’s experience spans these functions, making his appointment particularly relevant to the company’s effort to build an integrated manager rather than a collection of separately acquired capabilities.

Future Standard is therefore hiring for scale, distribution and organisational coordination. Conway’s background indicates that product expansion and capital formation will remain priorities, but his larger task will be creating a consistent operating model across businesses with different clients, investment horizons and risk profiles.

How does Michael Forman’s executive chairman role balance continuity with a genuine transfer of authority?

Forman’s move to executive chairman has been structured as a continuation of his involvement, not a departure from Future Standard. He will retain responsibility for long-term strategy, fund oversight, important client relationships and selected growth initiatives. This should reduce disruption among investors and employees who associate the company’s identity with its co-founder.

Continuity is especially important in alternative asset management because client relationships can extend across multiple fundraising cycles. Institutional investors, wealth-management firms and financial advisers often assess the stability of the wider organisation alongside the performance of individual strategies. An abrupt founder exit could have created unnecessary questions around investment culture, key-person dependence and the durability of existing relationships.

The arrangement nevertheless creates a governance question that Future Standard will need to manage carefully. Conway has been appointed chief executive officer, which ordinarily carries responsibility for operating performance, resource allocation, hiring, organisational design and execution. Forman will remain involved in areas that can overlap with those responsibilities, particularly strategy, fund oversight and growth.

The structure can work if responsibilities are clearly defined and the executive chairman acts as a source of institutional knowledge rather than a parallel chief executive. It becomes less effective if important operating decisions require repeated negotiation between the founder and the incoming leader. Founder transitions often look smooth on an organisational chart. The more revealing test arrives when the two leaders disagree over capital allocation, acquisitions, senior appointments or the pace of international expansion.

Future Standard’s description of the relationship as a partnership suggests that the transition is intended to be collaborative. Investors and employees will still watch for evidence that Conway possesses the practical authority to reshape the business where necessary.

What does Future Standard’s rise to $94 billion in assets reveal about the platform Conway inherits?

Future Standard’s current scale reflects several years of expansion through combinations, acquisitions, fundraising and broader distribution. In 2023, FS Investments combined with Portfolio Advisors to create an alternative investment manager with more than $73 billion in assets under management. The transaction added a substantial institutional business and deeper capabilities across private equity, private credit and private real estate.

By March 31, 2026, Future Standard estimated that assets under management had reached $94 billion. That represents an increase of approximately $21 billion from the scale announced around the Portfolio Advisors combination, although the comparison should not be treated as a measure of organic inflows. Changes in assets under management can reflect acquisitions, fundraising, deployments, realisations, market movements and valuation adjustments.

The expansion is still strategically significant. Future Standard has moved from a manager strongly associated with providing individual investors access to alternative assets into a broader platform serving institutional investors and private-wealth channels. Portfolio Advisors gave the organisation a more established institutional foundation, while Future Standard’s existing distribution relationships created opportunities to adapt institutional strategies for eligible wealth clients.

The company also rebranded from FS Investments to Future Standard in July 2025, when it reported approximately $86 billion in assets under management. The new identity was intended to represent a wider platform covering private equity, credit, real estate and related private-market solutions. Conway is therefore inheriting a business that has already changed in scale and branding but must still demonstrate that its parts operate as a coherent whole.

Scale can improve sourcing, product breadth and operating leverage, but it also raises the cost of inconsistency. Different investment teams may use distinct underwriting processes, client-reporting systems and distribution approaches. Conway must ensure that growth does not dilute investment discipline or create complexity that clients ultimately pay for through higher costs, slower decisions or uneven service.

Why do Portfolio Advisors and the Post Road Group acquisition matter to the new leadership structure?

The 2023 combination with Portfolio Advisors was the decisive step in Future Standard’s shift toward a larger institutional and wealth-management platform. Portfolio Advisors brought a history dating to 1994, together with institutional relationships and investment capabilities spanning primary funds, secondaries, direct investments and private credit.

The acquisition also created the opportunity to take investment strategies developed for institutional clients and distribute suitable versions through Future Standard’s private-wealth network. That bridge between institutional capabilities and wealth distribution is one of the most attractive growth opportunities in alternative asset management. It is also operationally demanding because product liquidity, fees, reporting, suitability and investor education can differ considerably between the two channels.

Future Standard expanded again in 2025 by acquiring Post Road Group’s digital infrastructure and asset-based investment team. The acquired platform managed more than $2 billion in assets, including commitments and co-investments, when the transaction was announced. Its strategy included credit and structured-equity investments involving data centres, fibre networks and cloud-connectivity infrastructure.

Digital infrastructure gives Future Standard exposure to capital demand associated with artificial intelligence, cloud services and enterprise digitisation. Yet it also introduces sector-specific underwriting requirements, technology obsolescence risk, customer concentration and potentially large capital needs. Future Standard cannot treat the acquired capability as merely another product for distribution. It must preserve specialist investment knowledge while establishing consistent controls across the wider company.

Conway’s experience overseeing multiple alternative asset classes should help with this balance. The strategic objective is to gain the advantages of a broad platform without forcing every acquired team into an identical investment model.

Can Edwin Conway convert BlackRock and Blackstone experience into growth at a middle-market specialist?

Conway’s experience provides credibility, but experience at global financial institutions does not automatically translate into success at a smaller alternative asset manager. BlackRock benefits from unmatched distribution scale, extensive technology infrastructure and an enormous base of institutional relationships. Future Standard, while substantial at $94 billion in assets, competes through specialisation, middle-market access and the ability to develop differentiated strategies.

The incoming chief executive must resist the temptation to reproduce a mega-manager operating model inside a business whose competitive appeal depends partly on focus and flexibility. Excessive centralisation could weaken the autonomy of investment teams or slow decisions. Too little integration, however, would leave Future Standard with duplicated systems and inconsistent commercial priorities.

Conway’s experience across both investment and distribution functions could prove particularly useful. Future Standard needs capital-formation leadership that understands what clients want, but it also needs safeguards against allowing fundraising demand to drive product creation faster than the investment opportunity can support.

The company’s middle-market focus is important in this respect. Middle-market private companies can offer less efficient pricing and more opportunities for active sourcing than larger transactions, but the segment also demands extensive due diligence and operational expertise. Future Standard’s growth will be more durable if new capital follows proven investment capacity, rather than if the organisation expands product menus simply because private markets remain fashionable.

Conway’s performance should consequently be judged through fund outcomes, client retention, disciplined product launches and successful integration. Growth in assets under management will matter, but the quality and profitability of that growth will matter more.

What does Future Standard’s recent senior hiring programme signal about organisational priorities?

Conway is joining during a wider build-out of Future Standard’s senior leadership. The company appointed Kyle Delaney as senior adviser and vice chairman, Chris Keogh as co-president and head of client engagement and capital formation, and Tosin Orimogunje as chief commercial officer of investment solutions.

These appointments indicate that Future Standard is investing heavily in distribution, client engagement and commercial coordination. Keogh’s appointment is particularly relevant because he spent nearly three decades at Goldman Sachs and most recently led its institutional client business within asset and wealth management. His role is expected to strengthen capital formation and deepen relationships across institutional and wealth channels.

The expanded leadership group gives Conway experienced executives with which to pursue global growth. It also increases the need for clear accountability. Multiple senior leaders with overlapping experience in distribution, institutional relationships and strategic partnerships can strengthen execution, but only if reporting lines and decision rights are unambiguous.

The hiring pattern suggests that Future Standard believes its investment capabilities can support a larger client franchise. That proposition will now be tested through fundraising efficiency, cross-platform cooperation and the ability to serve different investor groups without confusing the company’s positioning.

Employees will also watch how the new chief executive allocates influence among existing leaders and recent recruits. Leadership expansion can create career opportunities and bring new expertise, but it can also add organisational layers. Conway will need to show that the new structure accelerates decisions and client service instead of creating a very accomplished committee for discussing them.

What do international expansion and the latest fund close reveal about Future Standard’s ambitions?

Future Standard has added offices in Dubai, Seoul and Tokyo, supplementing its existing presence in Europe and Asia, while also opening a new headquarters in Philadelphia. This footprint signals an ambition to raise capital and build relationships across multiple regions rather than remain primarily dependent on the United States.

International expansion can diversify the investor base and improve access to sovereign institutions, pension funds, insurers, family offices and private banks. It also increases regulatory, cultural and operational complexity. Fund structures, marketing rules and investor preferences vary significantly across the Middle East, Europe and Asia.

Conway’s global institutional background should help Future Standard prioritise markets and avoid treating office openings as a substitute for durable client relationships. The company will need locally relevant products, experienced teams and long-term engagement. A new address alone does not raise a fund, however elegant the reception area may be.

Future Standard’s fundraising momentum provides Conway with a stronger starting position. In June 2026, the company completed the final close of PA Secondary Fund V with approximately $3 billion in commitments, the largest private fund close in its history. The strategy attracted commitments from 350 new and existing institutional investors across North America, Europe and Asia.

The fund focuses primarily on limited-partner-led secondary transactions involving the North American middle market. Future Standard estimated that it had deployed more than $12 billion through its secondaries platform since 2002. That track record and the geographic diversity of the latest fund’s investors give the company tangible evidence that its global distribution strategy is gaining traction.

What should clients, competitors and employees watch as the leadership transition progresses?

The first indicator will be whether Future Standard clarifies the operating relationship between Conway and Forman. Continuity should reassure clients, but the company must also demonstrate that the chief executive officer has authority over execution, organisation and resource allocation.

The second indicator will be product discipline. Future Standard now has capabilities across private equity, credit, real estate, infrastructure, secondaries and asset-based strategies. Conway must decide where additional scale can improve returns and where expansion might stretch investment capacity.

The third indicator will be integration. Portfolio Advisors and the digital-infrastructure team added valuable expertise, but Future Standard will need common standards for risk management, client reporting, technology and compliance while preserving the specialist judgement that made those businesses attractive.

Competitors will watch Future Standard’s ability to connect institutional strategies with private-wealth distribution. Large alternative managers are pursuing the same pool of wealth capital, while smaller specialists are competing through focus and performance. Future Standard occupies the space between those groups, which creates opportunity but also requires a particularly clear identity.

For employees, Conway’s arrival may bring changes in organisational structure, investment priorities and performance expectations. No broad workforce reduction or restructuring was announced with the appointment. The immediate signal is one of leadership investment and expansion, although integration efforts can eventually produce changes in roles, reporting lines and resource allocation.

The succession therefore begins from a position of momentum rather than distress. Future Standard has greater scale, a record fund close, new international offices and a deeper leadership bench. Conway’s challenge is to turn those ingredients into a repeatable operating advantage without weakening the investment discipline and client relationships that supported the company’s growth.

What are the key takeaways from Future Standard’s Edwin Conway CEO appointment?

• Edwin Conway became Future Standard’s chief executive officer on July 14, 2026, as co-founder Michael Forman moved to full-time executive chairman.
• Future Standard estimated that it managed $94 billion in assets as of March 31, 2026, making the succession a material change for a sizeable private-markets platform.
• Conway brings experience from BlackRock’s alternatives, institutional and capital-markets businesses, as well as earlier leadership experience at Blackstone.
• Forman will remain involved in strategy, fund oversight, client relationships and growth initiatives, providing continuity while creating a need for clearly separated decision-making responsibilities.
• The 2023 Portfolio Advisors combination expanded Future Standard’s institutional capabilities and created a stronger bridge between institutional strategies and private-wealth distribution.
• The acquisition of Post Road Group’s digital-infrastructure team added a specialised investment capability but increased the platform’s integration and risk-management complexity.
• Future Standard’s approximately $3 billion PA Secondary Fund V close provides evidence of fundraising momentum across North America, Europe and Asia.
• Recent appointments involving Kyle Delaney, Chris Keogh and Tosin Orimogunje show that capital formation, client engagement and global distribution remain central priorities.
• Conway’s success will depend on investment performance, integration, product discipline and client retention, not simply further growth in assets under management.
• The transition begins from a position of expansion, with no broad workforce reduction announced, but employees should watch for changes in reporting lines and resource allocation as the new structure settles.