Charlie Ittner

Charlie Ittner is the Founder and President of Darien Group, the branding and communications agency built for private equity, real estate, and the broader alternative investment industry. Branding and communications for investment managers is the only work he has done since he was twenty-two. Darien Group is the result of building a single discipline, deliberately, for more than a decade.

When Charlie founded the agency in 2015, brand was still treated as decoration across most of private equity. The firms that took it seriously did so quietly, as a means of accessing deals and winning LP commitments. Darien Group was built on the conviction that brand is a competitive instrument rather than an ornament. That position was early, and the agency has held the lead since, shaping how the industry approaches positioning, messaging strategy, and the materials that carry a firm’s story to investors.

In the early years, Charlie played every role himself. As Darien Group grew, his focus shifted to building and leading the team, driving growth, and lending his strategic voice to select client engagements. That work spanned most of the last decade, and the team, proprietary processes, and exacting standards it produced are what make the agency what it is today.

Today Darien Group works across the full range of the alternative investment industry: its largest managers, its strongest new funds, and sponsors of every strategy, vintage, and geography. The work reaches every audience that matters to a manager, drawing on industry-specific depth in brand building, capital-raising positioning, website design and development, and investor communications. Eleven years in, the agency’s maturation shows most in its people. DarienGroup’s strategists, designers, and account leaders are more experienced, more cohesive, and stronger than at any point in its history.

Prior to founding Darien Group, Charlie was the Director of Investor Relations at BKMCapital Partners and Director, Office of the Chairman at Platinum Equity. He holds an MBA from UCLA Anderson and a BA in English Literature from Pomona College.

Charlie lives in Miami Beach with his wife, Alina, their dog, Saoirse, and two cats, Enya and Barky. A lifelong New York sports fan, he is still adjusting to the Knicks’status as NBA champions and has not lost hope that the Mets will one day be good.