Star Mountain Capital announced that Warren DeKinder has joined as a Managing Director based in Star Mountain’s Dallas office, one of its team’s 20+ locations nationwide. With ~$4 billion in assets under management (committed capital including debt facilities as of 1/31/24), alignment of interest is a core value of Star Mountain’s investor-centric business, including being 100% employee-owned and sharing investment profits with 100% of its U.S.-based full-time team. Star Mountain is a purpose-built business with one of the largest teams focused on investing in established, profitable, small and medium-sized private U.S. businesses (the “lower middle-market”) which represents approximately 50% of U.S. GDP.
Warren DeKinder has 30+ years of leadership experience advising and recommending strategic investment solutions to some of the world’s largest and most sophisticated institutions and private clients.
“We are committed to providing our investors with the best service possible in accessing the benefits of the less efficient and large U.S. lower middle-market especially at this time where smaller banks are challenged in servicing the growing needs of growing private businesses,” said Brett Hickey, Star Mountain Capital Founder & CEO. “We are excited for Warren to join other Dallas based senior team members Managing Director Chris Goodwin and Senior Advisors Rob Kaplan and Tom Tull. Having launched my first private lending fund over 20 years ago in Texas, I am excited to be growing our footprint in this important and growing marketplace.”
“Having experienced the results for my own portfolio as an investor with Star Mountain and with a former trusted colleague of mine at the firm, I am thrilled to be joining as a full-time member of this impressive organization,” said Warren DeKinder. “I believe many institutional and high-net-worth investors can benefit from the higher returns and low market correlation that Star Mountain targets through its distinctive platform in this large and inefficient market and further value how growing many of these businesses, which include essential service-oriented businesses, can also be of great value to society and the economy.”
DeKinder began his career as an investment consultant with DeMarche Associates where he worked in investment manager research sourcing investment strategies and conducting qualitative as well as quantitative manager due diligence for recommendation to their clients. DeMarche Associates was founded in 1974 as an investment consultant for major corporations, retirement funds, endowments, foundations, and public funds.
After that, he took a position at LCG Associates where he became a specialist in investment manager search and selection and was a member of the Manager Review Committee. Founded in 1973 and headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, LCG Associates provides investment consulting advice for foundations, endowments, corporations, non-profits, and other institutions as well as private investors.
Most recently, DeKinder spent 14 years as a Senior Managing Director, Investor Relations, at Intech Investment Management, a global quantitative equity firm with $70 billion in assets under management (AUM) at its peak, which spun out from the Janus Henderson Group in 2022. He presented a sophisticated mathematical investment philosophy, process, investment portfolio and performance results to institutional plan sponsor staff, investment boards, consultants, manager research analysts, RIAs and wealth management advisors.
Prior to joining Intech, DeKinder spent 8 years as a Senior Vice President at ING Investment Management focused on institutional sales and relationship management in the central and western United States. ING Investment Management was part of global financial institution ING Group, one of the largest universal banks in the world with assets of approximately $1 trillion.
DeKinder graduated from University of Oklahoma with a Bachelor of Arts in Finance. He is FINRA Series 7, 6 and 63 licensed.
DeKinder is a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) and is a member of the CFA Institute, as well as the Dallas Society of Financial Analysts.