Panorama charges families who invest at least $1 million this year a 1.5 percent annual management fee and takes 15 percent of the profits after investors receive an 8 percent annual return. It charges 2 percent and 20 percent, respectively, for those investing at least $250,000. Private- equity funds usually charge 1.5 percent to 2 percent and keep 20 percent of profits.

George founded Panorama with childhood friend Clarence Castner, who ran the University of Nebraska Foundation from 2008 to 2012. The new firm made its first investments this year, in four technology companies, and is closing three deals in family- owned businesses, George said.

He declined to comment on Capricorn’s returns during his tenure because the information isn’t public. Eric Techel, chief financial officer at Capricorn, declined to comment on George or the firm’s returns. Skoll is worth $4.3 billion as of June 13, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Capricorn manages money for Skoll and other families.

Twitter Investor

As much as $1 billion of Capricorn’s $5 billion in assets were allocated to direct investments during George’s decade as CIO, George said. He took stakes in businesses before they went public or were acquired such as social networks Yammer Inc. and Twitter Inc.

George grew up in Columbus, Nebraska, and graduated from Cornell University in 1989. He started as a financial analyst in New York among a group of rising stars at Bankers Trust Co., including Mary Erdoes, who now runs JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s asset management unit, and Thomas Connolly, a partner at Goldman Sachs Group Inc. It was a changing time on Wall Street as restrictions on investment banking imposed by the Glass-Steagall Act were unwinding, George said.

Family Office

In 1995, he took a job at Goldman Sachs during another tectonic shift in finance: the dawn of Internet companies. He worked with wealthy families in San Francisco as Goldman Sachs helped take companies such as online marketplace EBay public in 1998. About three years later, Skoll asked him to help start a family office.

George said Panorama has an advantage over larger buyout firms because it won’t compete for large or public investments, instead using its Midwest location to find family-owned businesses that seek long-term owners.

Of the private-equity deals done year-to-date in the U.S., 3.72 percent happened in the Midwest, according to Seattle-based data provider PitchBook Data Inc.