MICHAEL AROUGHETI

Arougheti grew up in New City, New York, the son of two schoolteachers. He graduated cum laude from Yale with a degree in ethics, politics, and economics.

He started at Kidder, Peabody, then worked at Indosuez Capital and Royal Bank of Canada, where he ran the principal finance group. In 2004 he joined Ares to help build and grow its private credit business, lending money straight to companies.

That unit became the heart of the firm. He was named CEO in 2018, taking over from co-founder Antony Ressler.

Under him Ares has grown into a giant managing more than $600 billion across credit, private equity, real estate, and infrastructure.

Ares Management Corporation (co-founder and CEO)

Arougheti is a credit investor at his core, which means he mostly lends money rather than buying companies outright. His big idea was direct lending, where a firm like Ares hands cash straight to mid-sized companies instead of leaving it to banks.

When banks pulled back after the 2008 crisis, Ares rushed into the gap. His style is about scale and consistency, grinding out steady returns across hundreds of loans rather than swinging for a few giant wins.

He sees banks now as partners, not enemies, saying they do more business with Ares than ever. And he treats tight-money conditions as a chance to lend on great terms.

The whole private credit boom is Arougheti's win. He bet on direct lending in 2004, built Ares into the biggest player in the space, and watched the rest of Wall Street stampede in behind him a decade later.

Ares now manages more than $600 billion, and its credit business is the crown jewel. He has said the returns available in tight markets are about the best he has seen in 15 years.

Being early and right on a trend this size is about as good as it gets in finance.

Arougheti's biggest challenge is not a single bad deal but a giant fork in the road. Ares is famous for private credit, and some critics argue the firm has ridden that wave so hard it now faces a choice: stay focused on lending or sprawl into an everything-store of alternative investments.

Grow too fast into unfamiliar areas and returns can slip. There is also the risk baked into his optimism.

If the private credit market he keeps defending does eventually crack, he will be the face of it. So far he insists it is not broken.

Arougheti believes the real moat in finance is consistency and scale, not genius. He often says people underestimate how hard it is to perform well year after year and how hard it is to get big.

He is a true believer that private credit is a durable, growing business, not a bubble, and he has pushed back hard when critics call it broken. He thinks the pullback of traditional banks from lending is a long-term gift to firms like Ares.

And he treats moments when money is tight as the best times to put cash to work.

Arougheti grew up in New City, New York, in a family of educators. Both his parents were schoolteachers, which he talks about openly.

He keeps his own immediate family life largely out of the press.

Arougheti graduated cum laude from Yale University with a degree in ethics, politics, and economics, a mix that is more philosophy than finance. That broad, argument-heavy education shows up in how he defends private credit in public debates.

He learned the actual lending trade on the job, at Kidder, Peabody and Royal Bank of Canada, before building Ares.