Star Mountain Capital announced that Amon Johnson has joined as a Managing Director. Johnson will also join Star Mountain’s ESG and Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) committees.
“Amon is joining our team in response to the increasing demand by institutional and retail investors to target defensive, high yielding and asymmetric upside returns,” said Brett Hickey, Star Mountain Capital Founder & CEO. “Amon’s history in advising sophisticated clients and trusted relationships will allow Star Mountain to continue to provide high quality partnerships with our growing investor base, enhancing our value proposition to investors and business owners. We are aligned with Amon’s values including our continuing efforts to build an industry-leading and diverse team.”
“I was attracted to Star Mountain’s investor-centric differentiated and purpose-built business focused on generating systematic alpha for investors with the further benefit of low market correlation, which I think is increasingly important in today’s uncertain economic environment,” said Amon Johnson. “I believe Star Mountain’s distinctive business model and highly aligned team will be a perfect place for me to utilize my 30 years of experience including over 15 years at BlackRock. I look forward to leveraging my experience and relationships to continue to develop Star Mountain’s team and business.”
Johnson will be based in Star Mountain’s New York City office. He Johnson is a senior executive with 30+ years of investment industry experience working with some of the most sophisticated institutions and family offices investors on their portfolio investments.
Johnson spent over 15 years at BlackRock, the ~$9 trillion AUM global multi-asset investment manager. As a Managing Director and member of the Institutional Client Business Group, he advised and provided oversight for some of the largest and most sophisticated domestic institutional client relationships. He oversaw approximately $40 billion of client capital invested across a broad range of global strategies. At BlackRock, he worked under current Star Mountain Senior Advisor, Doug Waggoner, who led BlackRock’s U.S. & Canada Institutional Client Business Group.
Johnson was most recently a Managing Director, Head of Investor Relations & Fundraising at Backcast Partners, a $1.2 billion AUM private credit manager focused on senior lending to non-sponsored and sponsor backed companies in the U.S. lower middle-market. Mr. Johnson was responsible for all aspects of the fundraising process including coordination of investment consultants for larger institutional clients.
Prior to Backcast, Johnson was a Managing Director at PineBridge Investments as part of the Americas Institutional Sales Group where he focused on middle-market direct lending, mezzanine credit and secondary investment strategies. He helped restructure the U.S. product suite and played an integral part in the firm’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) effort.
Earlier in his career, Johnson was a Vice President at JPMorgan Investment Management responsible for building and managing direct relationships with over 30 clients representing total AUM of more than $10 billion. While at JPMorgan Investment Management, he was selected to join a group of 37 professionals from its nine global offices in a rigorous five-month program designed to build core competencies in all product lines and client areas.
Johnson started his career as a tax specialist at KPMG. He is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and has an MBA from The Leonard N. Stern school of business at New York University. He currently serves on the Board of Regents for Delbarton School where he holds three positions: Vice Chairman of the Board of Regents, Chairman – Finance and Audit Committee, and member of the Investment Committee.