The Blueprint for AI-Ready Investment Offices: Lessons from HICO Investment Group

Chris Hartnoll operates at the intersection of institutional investing and industrial technology. At HICO Investment Group, he has built a global multi-billion dollar platform that pairs a sophisticated multi-asset class endowment style portfolio with direct investment and incubation of new ventures in sectors like maritime logistics and energy transition. In this conversation, Chris unpacks what it means to prepare an investment office for AI: the security considerations, the folder structure decisions, the legal questions around data protection, and the cultural shift required to move from manual processes to AI-assisted workflows.

The conversation is grounded in Chris’s background navigating high-stakes environments, from aerospace engineering at Rolls-Royce to Morgan Stanley M&A Advisory to the Royal Marines. He draws a direct line between the discipline of preparation in those fields and the approach HICO has taken to AI adoption: do the unglamorous operational work first, then experiment in discrete, measurable process steps. He argues that the allocator community has been slow to look inward and apply AI to its own processes, despite readily advising GPs and portfolio companies to do the same.

What You’ll Learn:

• Why preparation and operational groundwork are the non-negotiable prerequisites for AI adoption in investment offices

• How HICO balances an endowment style portfolio with a company builder approach to direct investments and incubation, and what that means for information flow internally

• Why the allocator community has been slow to adopt AI despite advising portfolio companies and managers adopt AI

• How to start AI experimentation in discrete, measurable process steps

• Where early productivity gains are showing up: LPA summarization, manager interviews, and AI-assisted risk identification

• Why AI-enabled teams will respond faster and make better decisions during periods of rapid market change

• Why starting now is critical, even if full end-to-end AI integration is years away, and the cost of waiting

About Chris Hartnoll:

Chris Hartnoll is the CEO and Managing Director of HICO Investment Group, a global investment firm focused on maritime, logistics, and energy transition. Chris built and oversees a multi-billion dollar platform that includes a multi-asset class endowment style portfolio paired with direct investment and incubation of new ventures. Before founding HICO, Chris held roles in aerospace engineering at Rolls-Royce, M&A advisory at Morgan Stanley, and served as a Royal Marine. He holds an MBA from Harvard Business School.

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