The Chertoff Group

Chad Sweet, CEO and co-founder, leads the investment function alongside Executive Chairman Michael Chertoff. Sweet's background as a former Goldman Sachs managing director provides the transaction architecture, while Chertoff's government network shapes the sourcing thesis. The firm has not publicly named a dedicated CIO separate from the founding partners.

The firm operates both an advisory practice and an investment arm, Chertoff Capital, under the same roof. The advisory business provides security-risk consulting to corporations and governments, and it functions as a proprietary deal-sourcing engine for the investment side. This dual structure is unusual in the family-office and private-equity landscape.

Chertoff Capital has historically pursued buyout and growth-stage investments in middle-market companies. The firm reports targeting a range from early-stage startups to recapitalizations, with a focus on control and minority positions in security, defense, and intelligence-adjacent businesses where the principals can add operational or strategic value.

The firm has not published a formal exclusion list. Given its principals' government backgrounds and the sensitive nature of its deal flow, it has steered clear of consumer-internet, advertising-technology, and other sectors where founder networks and regulatory risks do not align with the advisory practice's core capabilities.

Proprietary sourcing comes through the ongoing security-consulting engagements led by Michael Chertoff and his team. These relationships with U.S. federal agencies, critical-infrastructure operators, and defense contractors give the firm early visibility into spinouts, contractor carve-outs, and founder-led security-technology companies before they reach a competitive auction.