Vessi Kapoulian
Founder at DBA Capital Group
Speaker

Profile

Vessi Kapoulian is a Family Office Advisor, Board Director, Principal Investor, best-selling author, and former commercial lender with deep expertise in strategic risk, investment due diligence, governance, and multi-generational continuity.

She advises family offices, founder-led enterprises, and rising G2/G3 leaders on strategic investments, mergers and acquisitions, governance design, and next-generation leadership development. Her work helps families strengthen decision-making, protect capital, and deploy wealth with greater clarity across generations.

Vessi began her career in commercial lending, where she managed a global $1BN+ credit portfolio of middle-market enterprises. That institutional credit background continues to shape her distinctive board-room perspective today - bringing a rigorous deep due diligence, downside protection, liquidity, and risk-management lens to strategic investments, direct deals, and complex capital allocation decisions.

Today, Vessi advises family offices and founder-led enterprises across three interconnected domains. As a strategic advisor and board director, she brings a credit and risk-management perspective to governance, capital allocation, and enterprise decision-making — helping families ask harder questions and build more durable structures. As a principal investor, she selectively invests in multifamily apartment assets, giving her a practitioner's viewpoint on real assets, operator evaluation, and portfolio construction. And as a trusted advisor on M&A and strategic transactions, she helps families navigate complex deals with the same analytical rigor she applied to a billion-dollar lending portfolio — from manager and investment due diligence to family constitution development and next-gen education.

Vessi holds a Bachelor's degree from the University of Arkansas and an MBA from Northwestern University, Kellogg School of Management.

Her mission is simple and enduring: Protect the downside. Build wisely across generations.