Chief Executive Officer & Director, CARLYLE GROUP INC
How Carlyle and Red Bull build winning cultures under pressure
What does it take to build a championship-caliber organization?
Carlyle CEO Harvey Schwartz and Oracle Red Bull Racing team principal and CEO Laurent Mekies Mekies join Axios' Sara Fischer for a conversation on leadership, performance, culture and the partnership between global finance and Formula One. They discuss why winning organizations are ultimately people businesses, how trust drives results and what leaders can learn from operating under constant pressure.
Schwartz explains why performance remains the ultimate metric for any institution, while Mekies shares how Red Bull evaluates suc...
About Harvey Schwartz
Harvey Schwartz, CEO of Carlyle, has been active in public discussions about global economic trends, leadership, and the firm's strategy. At a Semafor World Economy event in April 2026, Schwartz discussed his efforts to re-establish Carlyle's presence in Washington, D.C., and described the current period as "the early stages of the most significant inflection point in recent financial history." He cited declining interest rates, geopolitical cooperation, and globalization as long-standing trends that are shifting. Schwartz stated that geopolitical risk is "mispriced" by markets, noting that the market reaction to Silicon Valley Bank's collapse was more volatile than the response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, which he called "wildly more significant." In conversations with Axios and Forbes, Schwartz emphasized that Carlyle manages approximately $500 billion in assets and described performance as "the sole metric by which we have to judge ourselves." He discussed the firm's partnership with Oracle Red Bull Racing, explaining that the collaboration was driven by F1's global reach, young and diverse audience, and a shared focus on excellence. Schwartz described both organizations as "people businesses" where trust and connection drive results. He also expressed optimism about economic growth, stating that portfolio company EBITDA and cash flow are growing 9–12%, but noted that deficits and cyber risks are mounting concerns.
Transcript (45 segments)
✨ AI-enhanced transcript with speaker attribution
I
Interviewer0:00
Thank you so much for being here. So, let's start with you then, Harvey. Why partner with Laurent and with the folks over at the team? Why did you want to even get involved with F1 to begin with?
H
Harvey Schwartz0:12
Yeah. So, for us it was, I mean, you could boil it down really to a three-part decision-making process. Firstly, we could be involved in a lot of sports, but F1 first and foremost was a natural fit. It's global, the demographics, the young audience, it's more than 40% female, and it's global. And we're a global firm, we manage $500 billion on behalf of people really of all ages. We're one of the largest in the world at doing it. That was one. Two, we wanted to be attached to an extraordinary brand, extraordinary people, that were focused on excellence. That clearly was Oracle Red Bull Racing. And then I think the most important part of all these things, because you can see here on this incredible venue, this is a people business. And even in a day and age where technology drives everything, this is a people business, it requires connection. And as soon as we connected with Laurent and the rest of the team, it was quite natural. And it's been quite natural. You know, he and I text over the holidays, and I ask how his family's doing, and it was just a very, very natural instantaneously. I don't think we felt the personal connection and the focus on excellence was a prerequisite, but the personal connection made it special for us. And we've learned a lot along the way. I mean, I think David walked out, but I mean, who knew that David was born to race, because he told me last time we talked about that he was actually born in the back of a Mercedes because his parents didn't make it to the hospital. I was like, 'Wow, that's really fascinating.' And Laurent was with me, he goes, 'You were really born in the back of a Mercedes?' He goes, 'No, it's true. Born in the back of a Mercedes.' That's not a preferred vehicle, but where the Ford is, so not Ford, obviously. But it's the people connection part, I think, on top of all the other parts that make it truly special for us.
I
Interviewer2:01
And Laurent, Harvey spoke at such length about your chemistry. Did you feel that when you met Harvey as well?
L
Laurent Mekies2:08
Straight away. Also because...
I
Interviewer2:09
It's a love story over here.
L
Laurent Mekies2:11
You know what? I think we met about three or four days after I joined. And he said, 'If you don't win the next race, we don't make the deal.'
H
Harvey Schwartz2:20
Yeah, and then he guaranteed to win the balance of the season, which he pretty much did. And that was, you know, part of the contract, so that was fulfilled. So we felt quite good about it.
L
Laurent Mekies2:33
So, but Dr. Marko said he's actually true. We met only a few days after I actually had joined Oracle Red Bull Racing. I think what resonates specifically with what Harvey said is we choose one by one our partners in order to create a competitive advantage. That's the only thing we do. We are here to win races. That's the only brief we get from our shareholders. And in order to win races in such a competitive environment against all the other giants of the industry, you need to make sure you surround yourself with the right people. Harvey said it's fundamentally a people business. You get the right people, you win the races. You don't get the right people, you don't win the races. And that's...
I
Interviewer3:18
People see the people in the paddock, but how many people are working on the car?
L
Laurent Mekies3:24
On the car?
I
Interviewer3:25
In your organization.
L
Laurent Mekies3:26
So, you know, Oracle Red Bull Racing today is 2,000 people to look to invent, design, produce these two cars. And since this year the Red Bull Ford powertrain, our own power unit. So, it shows that we tend to take things a bit too seriously, but I know you guys do as well at Carlyle. And you know, that's really the other point of connections. We, as soon as we engaged the conversations with Harvey and his teams, we realized that we were actually in an incredibly similar business. We live and die with our performance. We need to have obviously the visions for our team, our company to get to the right place, but we get the shockwaves of the race weekends. The emotions about the short-term wins, the short-term losses, and it's very, very similar to what Harvey is doing with his teams. And fundamentally, we are a data business with an incredibly crucial layer of human intelligence on top. And every time we are opening a small box together, we were realizing how much, in a similar way, we had to build our companies in order to excel.
I
Interviewer4:36
Another synergy I see between the two companies is that you're both focused on democratizing access. So, from the Carlyle POV, to me, and please correct me if I'm wrong, it feels as though you're trying to democratize access to the private markets. From the Red Bull perspective, it's democratizing access to this. I mean, only so many people can actually come to Monaco, but there are F1 fans around the world. Harvey, is that the way that you see the synergy in the missions? Is there something I'm missing?
H
Harvey Schwartz5:04
Maybe. I mean, our industry, David Rubenstein and Bill Conway and Daniel founded Carlyle in 1987. Very young initially, we were really the pioneers. They were the venture capitalists of this industry. We're one of the largest, the most successful, the most iconic, we're global. This has been around a long time. You know, Monaco, I think the first Grand Prix was 1929, and it became part of the Formula 1 Constructors' Championship in 1950, if I'm getting my history correct. Is that correct?
L
Laurent Mekies5:28
It's incredibly accurate.
H
Harvey Schwartz5:29
So, they've been doing this for a long time. I'd say the trajectory, you heard David talking about it, the trajectory of Formula 1 now is explosive. And I think our industry, Carlyle being part of it, has also continued to grow. So, it went from what was considered private equity to different parts of the asset class. Along the way, we lost half the public companies in America. They went from 2,000, there were twice as many public companies as today. So, private capital plays a big role. So, it's sort of a natural evolution. I think it's coincidental. I don't think there's any correlation that, you know, this sport is exploding globally with over 800 million fans and the movie Formula 1 and everything having with Drive to Survive. But, because of that it fits. It fits quite well because of all the things I said before. All the viewer attention and really just being able to be in this room with everybody. It's pretty special.
I
Interviewer6:18
And Laurent, from your point of view, Oracle Red Bull is doing so much to democratize the sport thinking about fan engagement outside of this. I know this is critical and this room, this partnership is critical. But, can you just walk us through some of the things you're thinking about to help others experience the F1 race if they can't be here?
L
Laurent Mekies6:36
Of course, it's very much at the heart of the DNA of the involvement of Red Bull in Formula 1. You know, of course there is these 24 races that you see all over the world, fine. But, as you say, many, many people, even though the reach is incredible right now, we still think that many, many people will not see a Grand Prix weekend if we only stick to being at the race weekend and putting it on air. So, we do pretty much the same number of Grand Prix in the city center all over the world as road shows in the heart of the biggest city in the world. And obviously, we take the other sport to an audience that would probably not come to the race. Will learn about the sport by seeing David, for example, was there earlier, by seeing one of our drivers running a Formula 1 car in the city center. And we get, you know, 50, 60, 70,000 people coming to attend this road show. You don't need a Formula 1 ticket to do that. And this is how we engage with the next generation of fans. This is how we engage a wider reach for the sport and we think it's very much our target to make sure we contribute to the growth of the sport in that way.
I
Interviewer7:56
For you as a leader, how important is it to make sure that you're perceived as being accessible? Well, they you win, of course.
L
Laurent Mekies8:07
[laughter]
I
Interviewer8:08
Okay, well, you can answer that. How important is it that they win? I think we all know. But also, how important is it that people know and understand the role that you're playing to help democratize the sport as a leader?
L
Laurent Mekies8:19
You know, at first I go back to Alistair's comments. It is true. The only thing that matters is doing. If we win, everything else gets sorted. So, you know, that's the way we look at it at the factory. You win, everything else gets sorted. Your global audience is reached. You democratize the sport. You do more and more road shows, etc. So, we don't care too much about leadership style. We only care about building the right cultures, the right environment, the right connection and this is where Carlyle is helping us immensely. As the right connections in order to have our people in a position where they can express their talent at best and fundamentally brings performance to our business. And that's really how much focus we are on that single aspect.
I
Interviewer9:11
Harvey, when you think about what Laurent has said around performance in particular, how do you think about performance in the context of Carlyle being affiliated with F1 with Oracle Red Bull? What's sort of the key performance indicator?
H
Harvey Schwartz9:24
We operate a complicated business in a complicated world. You can really simplify our business too. If we look, we act as a fiduciary. We have trust in people in this room. They allocate capital to us. If we perform, we give them the proper returns, and then we return the capital, they trust us again, they give us the capital. So, at the end of the day, performance is the sole metric by which we have to judge ourselves. I think any institution, really, whatever their benchmark is around performance and being hyper-focused on performance, all good things happen when you perform. I think in terms of the partnership, what we tried to do is figure out a way to work together to sort of unlock value within Carlyle, within Oracle Red Bull, within the sport. And so, we've been participating in races all around the world. It gives us the ability to convene. You know, I'll be here this evening. I'll be at the race tomorrow. We won't talk a lot of business with people here tonight. This is just such a privilege to be here. There's a lot of complicated things in the world. We're all very lucky to be on this boat while there's a lot of suffering happening around the world. But you know what? There'll be personal connections and it reinforces what is fundamental to all of this, which is the trust. And I think that's really what is quite special about the Red Bull brand and the Oracle Red Bull Racing team. And obviously, as a leader, I have deep, deep respect for these people. These people, I mean, our ability to forget is instantaneous, is amazing. People forget he stepped into this role at a very critical time when the team wasn't performing very well. And literally instantaneously, like some sort of magic dust landed, the team started performing. Now, I will say it did...
L
Laurent Mekies11:09
Did you please stop him?
I
Interviewer11:11
He's your hype man. You got to let him roll.
H
Harvey Schwartz11:12
It did happen to correlate with the Carlyle Oracle Red Bull sponsorship.
L
Laurent Mekies11:17
It's purely down to the Carlyle Oracle connection.
H
Harvey Schwartz11:20
There's some attribution we've earned, but watching him as a leader and seeing how humble he is and how hard he works and how he's brought the team together, there's a lot to be learned from all of us from that.
I
Interviewer11:31
Okay, so at Axios, we like to end on one fun thing. Even though that was a very fun thing to end on. What are your race predictions for the weekend? Do you have any?
H
Harvey Schwartz11:39
Race predictions for you guys? Okay, then my race prediction for the weekend is we're going to win. My bigger race prediction is that we win the constructor championship, the championship driver for the next 5 years. That is my hope, my expectation, and we know we have the right leader, the right team, the right car, and the right drivers. That's it.
L
Laurent Mekies11:59
You guys done?
I
Interviewer12:02
On the same line, you know.
L
Laurent Mekies12:03
[laughter]
I
Interviewer12:04
No pressure.
H
Harvey Schwartz12:05
No, he's thinking 10 years. Maybe I wasn't ambitious enough with 5 years.
L
Laurent Mekies12:09
You know, we always have these jokes internally because we obviously, as any leaders as Harvey, you know, we are under this pressure for results short-term, long-term. Same then for you guys. And sometimes we hear some of our competitors saying, you know, we are getting ready for being able to win in 2030. So, normally when they do that I call my boss and I say, 'How come they have 6 years and you give me six races?' So, that's the reason also the Harvey attitude, you know, you have 6 minutes to get the results but we also want to win in 6 years.
H
Harvey Schwartz12:47
Now, your team, hey, you talked about it. The team had some challenges earlier in the season with some races canceled but the momentum that you have right now is extraordinary. P3 last week in Silverstone or 2 weeks ago. And so, you can see it all coming together and at Carlyle we're completely unsurprised by all of that.
I
Interviewer13:08
Some of the things that I picked up from this conversation that are really going to stick with me. Harvey, you said one thing that really jumped out which was there was a focus...
H
Harvey Schwartz13:18
True. It's very... I'm not getting... sorry.
L
Laurent Mekies13:19
No, it's also... Well, you were saying that it probably should have been a different car. I was thinking an ambulance may have been appropriate to be born...
H
Harvey Schwartz13:29
I was thinking of...
L
Laurent Mekies13:32
We can make a Ford Oracle Red Bull... we can do it in an ambulance. Why don't we rebrand it?
I
Interviewer13:38
Okay, so some of the things we take away. You said that excellence was a prerequisite, which was such an interesting place that it shows that the bar is high from the absolute start of a partnership. When I asked about what's the value of this partnership in F1, you said it's global. It's a young audience. You're managing $500 billion in assets. I mean, being global is so key to that. And it's a people business, which is clearly why this partnership with Laurent works. Laurent, 2,000 people working on those two cars. It's a pretty impressive stat. It comes to show how hard everybody is working to make this possible. When I talk about your businesses, you're both very focused on performance, which is an interesting synergy that you both have. We talked about how you are democratizing the race, bringing different road shows, people coming out. 70,000 people in some of these city centers just to get access is pretty extraordinary. And at the end of the day, when I asked about what's the biggest metric of success, obviously it's winning. Both of their prediction is that you guys are going to win this weekend, and I think that we also share that prediction with you. Hopefully, a round of applause for Harvey.
H
Harvey Schwartz14:42
Thank you, Aaron.