After spending the first part of the year as a special adviser to General Atlantic LLC, Hans Morris is now becoming head of the private equity firm's financial institutions group. "There was a little bit of a mutual trying out," says Morris, 51, noting that his career path to investor was not entirely "a natural progression." Morris spent 27 years as an investment banker at Citigroup Inc. and its predecessor organizations and then two years as president of credit card giant Visa Inc.

"I almost felt I knew nothing when I moved to Visa," he says. "I was surprised by the complexity."

When Morris landed at Visa in 2007, he realized that bankers' models, though clean on paper, did little to capture the true complexity of operating a company and doing things such as integrating different technological platforms, or selling products in different markets. Shepherding Visa through its $19.7 billion initial public offering in March 2008 also held surprises. "I was shocked at how markedly the process had changed in the years since I was doing equity offerings as a banker," he says.

Morris left Visa in 2009 as the company completed a reorganization that began before the IPO. He then signed on as an adviser to Greenwich, Conn.-based General Atlantic, partly because of his relationship with William E. Ford, the firm's CEO, whom Morris counts as a friend. He also attended Dartmouth College with David Hodgson, a GA managing director.

Morris started his career at Citi predecessor Smith Barney in 1980, and eventually he held roles such as head of the financial institutions group, head of client management, and CFO and head of finance, technology and operations for Citigroup's investment bank -- the last post he had before joining Visa.

As an adviser to General Atlantic, Morris says his experience at Visa helped him see how operational issues might raise questions about some investments. He says he also learned to take into account exit strategies and pay more attention to the different personalities around transactions.

"A wider range of issues come up in investments," he says.