Star Mountain Capital announced that Frank Porcelli has joined as Senior Advisor. Star Mountain has 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.

Frank Porcelli has had a distinguished 30+ year career in asset management and wealth management. While he was at BlackRock (NYSE: BLK), one of the world’s largest asset management firms at nearly $10 trillion of assets under management, he headed its U.S. Wealth Business and was a member of their Operating Committee and helped that division grow assets under management from $250 billion to $1 trillion.

Mr. Porcelli retired from BlackRock after 14 years, where he served as a member of the firm’s Operating Committee and head of the firm’s US wealth advisory business. As the head of US Wealth Advisory, he had been responsible for integrating iShares with active coverage, creating the independent channel and shifting BlackRock’s strategic focus from product sales to portfolio construction.

“We are honored to have Frank join Star Mountain as an aligned Senior Advisor bringing extensive strategic leadership, business management and client service experience,” said Brett Hickey, Star Mountain Capital Founder & CEO. “His experience with helping build a strong client service organization at BlackRock will help us continue to provide our investors with the best service possible in accessing the benefits of the less efficient and large U.S. lower middle-market.”

“Having experienced the results for my own portfolio as an investor with Star Mountain, I am thrilled to be joining as a Senior Advisor,” said Frank Porcelli. “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 U.S. lower middle-market.”

Prior to joining BlackRock, Mr. Porcelli served as the managing director of institutional sales and consultant relations at Putnam Investments for six years and director of corporate asset management services at Goldman Sachs for three years. Previously, he held various roles at Smith Barney, including director of retirement services, head of unit investment trusts, chief operating officer of Smith Barney Mutual Funds and manager of strategic planning.

Mr. Porcelli is currently Managing Partner at Convergency Partners, a unique advisory and consulting business focused on the formulation and execution of growth strategies for asset management, wealth management and financial technology clients.

He earned his bachelor’s degree in accounting from Pace University and is on the Board of Trustees of Partnership Schools, a non-profit supporting elementary school education in underserved communities.