Star Mountain Capital
Dr. Anthony Pesco brings 25 years of finance, risk management and investment experience to Star Mountain as a strategic investor and Senior Advisor. Tony recently retired from Credit Suisse after 18 years where he held several leadership roles including running a 500-person global team which generated approximately $2 billion in annual revenues.
Tony initially joined Credit Suisse as a Managing Director and Deputy Head of Strategic Risk Management and was responsible for evaluating and managing significant balance sheet risks and recommending corrective action where appropriate. He was the chief architect of the Credit Suisse economic risk capital allocation model that the bank still uses today to allocate risk capital amongst its businesses.
During the 2008 – 2009 financial crisis, Tony was Head of Trading Risk for the Securities division and was responsible for managing and disposing of the dislocated credit and real estate assets.
Tony has strong long-term relationships with the Star Mountain team including previously reporting to Chairman Brian Finn who held various roles including Co-President and Head of Asset Management at Credit Suisse and Star Mountain’s Chief Risk Officer, Dr. Lev Borodovsky who reported to Dr. Pesco.
Tony’s roles at Credit Suisse included Global Head of Equity Derivatives, Fund Linked Products and Convertible Bond Sales, Trading and Product Development.
Prior to joining Credit Suisse, Tony started his career in finance in the Derivatives Research group at JP Morgan (1989‐1991). Tony was also the Global Head of Derivative Products at Santander Investments (1995‐1998) and Head of Product Development for AIG Financial Products (1991-1995).
Tony has a PhD in Chemical Engineering from Columbia University and worked at AT&T Bell Laboratories as a research scientist prior to embarking on his career in finance.
As an aligned personal investor and Senior Advisor, Dr. Pesco shares his general best practices across many aspects of Star Mountain’s business including assisting with strategic risk monitoring and management.
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Star Mountain Capital
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Star Mountain Capital ($1.5bn + AUM) has a differentiated business model and “Collaborative Ecosystem” including its three channel approach to investing into small and medium-sized businesses via Direct Investments, Strategic Primary Fund Investments and Secondary Fund Investments. Star Mountain invests: 1. As a strategic limited partner into other private equity and private credit fund managers focused on the lower-middle-market (including SBIC funds and as an anchor investor); 2. As a secondary investor providing liquidity to existing limited partner investors; and, 3. Directly into companies to help them grow (in the form of senior debt, mezzanine and/or equity investments). Star Mountain often partners with its portfolio of top performing fund managers to help "match" businesses with investment partners who are best suited to maximize value for business owners. Investing in the Growth Engine of America ® – Star Mountain is a specialized investor exclusively focused on providing capital to lower middle-market established small and medium-sized private U.S. businesses that have between $2 million and $20 million of EBITDA. Star Mountain’s data-driven approach, bringing large market expertise and resources to private equity and private credit investing is powered by its custom-built technology and its Collaborative Ecosystem ®. Star Mountain was recognized as one of the Best Places to Work by both Crain’s and Pensions & Investments. Crain’s two-part survey process consisted of evaluating each nominated company’s workplace policies, practices, philosophy, systems and demographics. The second part involved an employee survey to measure the employee experience. The combined scores determined the top companies and the final ranking. Detailed eligibility criteria can be found here: https://www.bestplacestoworknyc.com/eligibility-criteria P&I partners with a company called Best Companies Group on the survey that is behind the Best Places to Work program. P&I works with them to develop the parts of the questionnaires that are specific to money management. Beyond those questions, P&I’s survey partner develops and scores the surveys. P&I only sees anonymous responses to questions, identified only by the company name. If Best Companies determines that a firm scores above the threshold cutoff that they have set for a firm to be considered a Best Place to Work then P&I names them on their list. P&I uses the same cutoff for all firms but rank the firms against their peers by number of employees. P&I only ranks the top 5 firms per size category and then list the rest in alphabetical order. There is no fee to participate in the Best Places to Work in Money Management program. P&I’s partner, Best Companies Group, does offer some of the results of the surveys for sale to each participating company, but that has no influence on how a company is ranked or whether or not they are recognized as a best place to work. Detailed eligibility criteria can be found here: https://www.bestplacestoworkmm.com/eligibility-criteria