Weil Taps Nee as Leader-in-Waiting to Succeed Barry Wolf (1)

Weil Gotshal & Manges’ Barry Wolf will hand over the reins to private equity partner Ramona Nee next year, the firm said Tuesday.

Nee, who has served as a co-managing partner for more than a year, will take over for Wolf as executive partner in January. Wolf will continue to chair the firm’s management committee until he hands that role to Nee at the end of next year. The overlap in their tenures will ensure a “smooth leadership transition,” Weil said in an announcement.

“I’ve been a valuable contributor to the firm from a practice leadership perspective,” said Nee, a co-head of Weil’s US private equity practice who has spent most of her two-and-a-half-decade career at the firm. “It was a little bit of a natural progression for me after talking to Barry and others over the last few years about what the future of our firm would look like.”

The move ends speculation about who would be next to run the firm after Wolf reached 68, Weil’s mandatory retirement age. Mike Aiello, the influential corporate partner overseeing a 600-lawyer department, chaired the committee that assisted with the succession planning process. The firm also hired leadership consultancy Spencer Stuart to advise on the succession plan, Wolf said in an interview Tuesday.

Aiello will continue to have a leading role at the firm, helming a newly created “global strategy committee” that Wolf said is tasked with making recommendations about firm strategy and lateral hiring.

Jonathon Soler, a private funds partner who also served as co-managing partner, will be the firm’s sole managing partner when Nee is elevated next year. Nee will set the firm’s strategic direction and oversee financial performance, while Soler will be in charge of the firm’s operations, Weil said.

Wolf, who has led the firm for 16 years, will become a senior counsel at the firm at the start of 2028. The firm said Wolf will work part-time, giving advice on lateral partner recruiting and business development.

The firm announced Nee and Soler as dual co-managing partners last February with the understanding that it would be a temporary bridge to a new leadership structure, according to Wolf. “It allowed us to figure out the permanent structure and figure out what roles they wanted to play in it,” he said.

The management committee formally recommended Nee and Soler to the firm’s partnership, which unanimously voted in their favor on Tuesday, according to Wolf. He said the management committee didn’t shut the door to other potential leadership hopefuls, but the past 12 months gave Nee and Soler experience and exposure that makes them fit for the new positions.

“The last year was frankly a great opportunity to get greater exposure to the management of the firm,” Soler said. “I’ve been on the management committee but it’s a different thing to be sitting next to Barry on the management committee.”