Warren DeKinder

Warren DeKinder has joined New York City-based Star Mountain Capital as managing director based in the firm’s Dallas office.

Star Mountain is a rapidly growing specialized private credit and secondaries investment firm targeting systematic alpha and low market correlated returns for its global institutional and high-net-worth investors.

According to Star Mountain founder and CEO Brett Hickey, the firm aims to deliver top-tier service to investors seeking opportunities in the expansive yet under-efficient U.S. lower middle-market lending space.

Hickey says this is “a time where smaller banks are challenged in servicing the growing needs of growing private businesses.” 

“We’re excited for Warren to join other Dallas-based senior team members, Managing Director Chris Goodwin and Senior Advisors Rob Kaplan and Tom Tull,” Hickey added. “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.”

With roughly $4 billion in assets under management, Star Mountain said that 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 said it 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, which represents about 50% of U.S. GDP.

Investor to managing director

DeKinder has more than 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, the firm said.

“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’m thrilled to be joining as a full-time member of this impressive organization,” DeKinder said in a statement. “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 started 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, Star Mountain said.

After that, DeKinder 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.

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 at its peak, which spun out from the Janus Henderson Group in 2022.

Before Intech, DeKinder spent eight years as a senior vice president at ING Investment Management focused on institutional sales and relationship management in the central and western United States.

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