Senior AV Operations Engineer at the world’s largest alternative asset manager. Led the Lifesize/Cisco decommission to Zoom Rooms transition well before this became the industry norm — an early data point in the “ahead of the curve” arc.
Blackstone is the largest alternative asset manager in the world — $1T+ AUM, the firm that sets the standard for institutional infrastructure. The 2018-2019 engagement covered Senior AV Operations Engineering at the events center plus the major room migration: decommissioning the existing Lifesize / Cisco enterprise video conferencing stack and replacing it with Zoom Rooms / Zoom for Business.
This was 2018-2019. Zoom went public in April 2019. The COVID-19 work-from-home pivot was still a year away. Most enterprise IT departments were still defending their existing Cisco TelePresence and Lifesize investments.
Blackstone moved early. VAAV led the technical operations.
Eighteen months later, every enterprise on the planet was scrambling to do exactly what Blackstone had already finished. The pandemic forced the entire industry to do, in weeks, what Blackstone had thoughtfully done in months — with VAAV holding the AV operations seat through the transition.
This is one of the documented data points on the VAAV “ahead of the curve” thesis arc: a 31-year pattern of forward-looking technology adoption decisions that consistently save clients years. The Blackstone Zoom migration in 2018-2019 sits alongside the 2001 NASA EPSCoR streaming pioneer work, the 2019 Gau Media virtual camera interface for Hong Kong protests, the 2020 WW Connect 6-Day Pivot, and the 2026 AI-native broadcast operations at Intuit’s NYC campus.
Each of those was novel when shipped. Each is now table stakes.
The Blackstone engagement was Vincent’s first major engagement via TriTech Communications, the Northeast AV integrator. Two more TriTech engagements followed at scale: the AudienceView/TheaterMania lift-and-shift (2019-2020), then the Federal Reserve Bank of NY (2018-2020 + 2024-2025 re-engagement). Three TriTech cycles total over six years.
The relationship that began at Blackstone is the relationship Cliff Alberti, EVP at TriTech, was describing when he later said:
“If you need someone to come in, roll their sleeves up and do the technical work and also run the meetings with C-suite executives, Vincent is the guy you want.”
— Cliff Alberti · EVP · TriTech Communications
That defines the engagement category. Contract CTO. Blackstone is what the seat looks like at a $1T+ asset manager during a major platform transition.
Senior AV Operations Engineer · events center + enterprise room transition · six-month tenure
Lifesize enterprise video · Cisco TelePresence · legacy enterprise video conferencing stack
Zoom Rooms · Zoom for Business · the platform that became the industry default 18 months later
TriTech Communications · first of three TriTech engagement cycles across six years
Blackstone joins Elliott Management, Millennium, Lazard, JPMC, HSBC, Deutsche Bank, Barclays, the Federal Reserve Bank of NY, BNY Mellon, Citadel, Fortress, MUFG, Aristeia, and Metropolitan Commercial Bank as the 15 Tier-1 financial institutions in VAAV’s 31-year catalog.
For Tier-1 finance technology-transition leadership inquiries: book a call.