The systems built to guide, govern, and grow alternative investments have lagged the industry’s rapid expansion—CAIA’s Vision 2035 and CAIA.nxt™ aim to close that gap.

The global landscape of investment management is evolving faster than the talent pipelines, product development, and regulatory frameworks designed to support it. Today, the Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst (CAIA) Association is stepping onto the stage at ALTSUK in London, ready to meet the moment with a forward-looking agenda.

A Unique Vantage Point to Guide the Profession Forward

For over two decades, the CAIA Association has stood at the intersection of professionalism, objectivity, and innovation in the world of alternative investments. As an independent, member-driven body, CAIA is not beholden to any single stakeholder—be it product, platform, or profit. That independence gives them a unique vantage point: one that spans allocators and asset managers, regulators and educators, practitioners and policymakers.

“Being a professional body means we answer to the long-term health of the industry, not short-term cycles or trends. And because our mandate has always been about what’s ahead—not just what’s now—we believe we are uniquely positioned to name the gaps, ask the hard questions, and help chart a better course forward,” said John L. Bowman, CEO of CAIA Association.

Today, they are advancing Vision 2035, a bold strategy designed to guide the investment profession through its next era, and unveiling CAIA.nxt™, a reimagined enterprise learning platform, to cultivate the future of talent, ideas, and capital.

“The term 'alternative' no longer reflects reality,” Bowman continued. “But thought leadership, competency mapping, and capital allocation techniques haven’t kept pace with the scale and complexity of this shift. Traditional and tired models of education and industry engagement are simply no longer fit for purpose. It became clear to us that to meaningfully address this challenge, we had to go directly to the source and engage with investment professionals to understand how CAIA can help them build the skills and insights this new era demands of us.”

With Vision 2035, CAIA is not just addressing the industry’s evolving need but is building a global community of investment professionals who are energized, connected, and committed to improving outcomes for investors around the world.

Insights from a Global Listening Tour: Eight Key Insights Ahead

Earlier this year, CAIA Association embarked on a global listening tour across markets, industry leaders, members, and partners to better understand what’s changing, and what’s needed next.

“The rise of alternatives has been one of the defining shifts in global finance over the past decade, with assets under management projected to surpass $24 trillion by 2028,” said Bowman. “But while capital has surged into private markets, the systems designed to guide, govern, and grow this space have not evolved at the same pace. Vision 2035 is our response to that disconnect - a new vision for a fundamentally changed industry.”

This was not a vision created in isolation. From the outset, CAIA recognized that shaping the future of the alternatives industry required deep, sustained engagement with the very professionals driving it forward. Over the course of months, hundreds of conversations were convened with allocators, asset managers, regulators, educators, and other stakeholders across the global investment ecosystem. The community became both the catalyst and the compass for this effort, grounding CAIA in the realities of today while pushing them to imagine what's next. The insights gathered didn’t just inform their direction, they defined it.

From that collective intelligence, eight key insights emerged with clear, actionable imperatives that reflect the industry's most pressing needs and greatest opportunities:

A Convergence of Public and Private Markets: The line between “traditional” and “alternative” investments is blurring. Investors are blending both into unified strategies, reshaping mandates and client conversations. The old categories no longer fit how capital is raised, managed, or understood.

Shifting Product Innovation and Design: From evergreen vehicles to tokenized funds, investment product design is evolving rapidly and often faster than investors, advisors, or regulators can keep up. In wealth management especially, client demand is outpacing advisor fluency, exposing a growing gap between innovation and understanding.

Changing Geopolitical and Macro Climate: The world is adjusting to higher rates, persistent inflation, and geopolitical fragmentation. The investment playbook of the last 40 years is no longer reliable. Practitioners are rethinking diversification, risk, and capital flows in a more fractured global economy.

Artificial Intelligence and Organizational Impact: AI is moving from theory to tool. From data analysis to team structure, it’s changing how decisions are made. While the efficiency gains are real, so are the risks, especially around overreliance, role disruption and workflows across the front, middle, and back office.

A New Professional Development Toolkit: Linear paths are out. Today’s investment professionals need judgment, agility, and cross-disciplinary fluency, especially in tech, strategy, and systems thinking. The next generation of leaders won’t just analyze data. They’ll need to connect dots others can’t see.

Welcoming a Blockchain-enabled Industry: Tokenization isn’t mainstream yet, but it's coming. It promises broader access, faster settlement, and fractional ownership of illiquid assets. Questions around regulation and governance still loom large.

Renewed Importance of Organizational Culture: In an age of disruption, culture is your deepest moat. Firms rooted in trust and shared purpose are more resilient and more likely to outperform long term. Culture isn’t soft. It’s structural.

New and Evolving Centers of Private Capital: While geopolitical forces suggest de-globalization, private capital is expanding across borders and establishing new hubs of influence spanning Asia, the Middle East, Africa, and beyond. Staying competitive means navigating local rules, sourcing regional talent, and thinking beyond traditional hubs.

From these insights, several truths emerged about the future of the industry:

• It will be borderless in both geography and portfolios.
• It will be digital but need to remain deeply relational.
• It will be disruptive, due to both mega-trends and a new economic normal.
• It will demand a different kind of organization — one that earns trust, adapts fast, and grows where it matters most.

CAIA’s Vision 2035 is its answer to that future.

The Vision is built on a foundational belief that the next chapter of alternatives requires much more than a credential. It will require a connected, energized, and principled global community.

The strategy is anchored by four priorities:

1. Activating the Network Advantage– What happens when the right market meets the right momentum.
2. The Primacy of Community – How collective energy outperforms individual achievement.
3. CAIA.nxt™: The Future of Learning – What learning looks like when it’s built for now.
4. The Capital of Private Capital – Where capital formation begins and market trends take shape.

These priorities reflect a shift already underway and one that goes far beyond traditional credentialing. To explore the full scope of these priorities, visit Vision 2035.

Introducing CAIA.nxt™: Built for What the Industry Demands Next

With the industry undergoing rapid change, CAIA is reintroducing its UniFi platform as CAIA.nxt™ to deliver the first tangible and most comprehensive solution specifically designed for the industry’s transformation. The NXT ecosystem will be free to CAIA Members and offers a variety of subscription-based models for industry stakeholders. With refreshed identity, modern user experience, and aggressive content blueprint designed to reflect the shifting dynamics of the industry, CAIA.nxt™ supports continuous, integrated professional development for teams adapting to the future.

“By learning directly from industry leaders shaping today’s markets, NXT users gain practical insights they can apply immediately. This approach is part of our larger commitment to raising the collective alts fluency across the profession, helping our community prepare for the next wave of evolution and the conversations that come with it.” said Steven Novakovic, CAIA, CFA, Managing Director, CAIA Educational Programs.

Building the Operating System for Global Capital

CAIA is actively aligning its programs, partnerships, and Member experience with Vision 2035 and this announcement signals a new chapter, not just for the Association, but for the industry at large.

“We’re not just responding to change, we’re designing for it,” said Bowman. “By 2035, we expect that we will have built an operating system that transformed how the investment world learns, connects, and allocates capital. This is an invitation to our partners, allies, and forward-thinkers globally to join us.”

To learn more or join the movement, visit https://caia.org/Vision-2035.

About CAIA Association

CAIA Association is a global network of forward-thinking investment professionals, redefining the future of capital allocation in a world where traditional and alternative converge. United by a commitment to improving investment outcomes, we lead with authority, educate to inspire, and connect people who turn insight into action. To learn more about the CAIA Association and how to become part of the most energized professional network shaping the future of investing, please visit us at https://caia.org/.

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“Our mandate has always been about what’s ahead—not just what’s now... we believe we are uniquely positioned to name the gaps, ask the hard questions, and help chart a better course forward," John Bowman, CEO of CAIA Association.