By Evie Liu
Olivia Wassenaar has worked at Apollo Global Management for eight years. She currently leads the firm's infrastructure investment group, where the 60-person team manages and deploys capital for more than five funds.
Growing demand from artificial intelligence, the energy transition, and industrial expansion is boosting the importance of infrastructure assets such as power plants, solar farms, and data centers.
Over the past five years, Apollo has invested $120 billion in infrastructure projects that have "low obsolescence," says Wassenaar, meaning they remain useful for long periods and are critical to how modern economies function.
"We're investing in true hard assets that are a big part of the industrial renaissance," she tells Barron's. "If you look at the scale of capital needed, we're talking multitrillions."
Wassenaar, 46, grew up in Rhode Island and began her career at the World Bank's environment group. She later moved into investment banking at Goldman Sachs before transitioning to private equity, with an early focus on renewable-energy investment.
Her former boss and mentor at the World Bank, current International Monetary Fund head Kristalina Georgieva, played an important role in shaping her career, says Wassenaar. Georgieva herself has been one of our 100 Most Influential Women in U.S. Finance since we introduced the list in 2020.
Write to Evie Liu at evie.liu@barrons.com
This content was created by Barron's, which is operated by Dow Jones & Co. Barron's is published independently from Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal.
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
March 13, 2026 11:00 ET (15:00 GMT)
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