This is Financial News’ fourth 40 under 40 Rising Stars in Private Equity list, featuring a band of young professionals in positions of responsibility across the industry.

The list reflects a theme that has been playing out in the industry as a whole: the rise in secondaries sales. A sizeable proportion (17.5%) of the rising stars are in the business of sourcing buyers or overseeing deals in private equity's market for buying second-hand fund stakes. While it is tricky to obtain data on the buying and selling of existing stakes in private equity funds, secondaries advisory firm Cogent Greenhill estimates that roughly $40 billion of such deals were transacted in 2015 - the second highest year on record since the $42 billion of 2014.