Valerie Brown Joins StepStone Board
The addition of the former Advisor Group and Cetera exec expands the private markets investment firm’s board to 11 members.
Former Advisor Group executive chair Valerie Brown has joined the board of global private markets investment firm StepStone Group.
The addition of Brown, the board’s third independent director, expands it to 11 members, StepStone said Tuesday. The industry veteran will serve on the board’s Audit Committee.
Brown was executive chair of Advisor Group’s board from 2016 until 2019, when Advisor Group said it was being acquired by the private equity firm Reverence Capital Partners and Brown was stepping down. But she remains a board member.
Brown was also CEO of Cetera Financial Group from 2010 to 2014. Prior to joining Cetera, Brown held a number of executive and senior leadership positions at the global bank ING, as well as Taco Bell Worldwide, Bain & Co. and Chevron.
“Her experience as a board member and executive at leading financial institutions will provide us with the diverse perspectives required to thrive in an ever-changing world,” according to Monte Brem, co-CEO and chairman of StepStone.
“In addition, her expertise in wealth management and product distribution will be invaluable as StepStone continues to grow its brand and assets with high-net-worth and mass affluent investors,” he said in a statement.
StepStone’s “tremendous growth since inception is a testament to its exceptional people, client-centric focus, and collaborative, stakeholder-oriented culture,” Brown said in the announcement. “I look forward to contributing to the firm’s continued success and serving the needs of all shareholders.”
As of Dec. 31, StepStone oversaw $333 billion of private markets allocations, including $80 billion of assets under management, it said. Its clients include some of the world’s largest public and private defined benefit and defined contribution pension funds, sovereign wealth funds and insurance companies, as well as endowments, foundations, family offices and private wealth clients, including high-net-worth and mass-affluent individuals.
StepStone partners with its clients to develop and build private markets portfolios designed to meet their specific objectives across the private equity, infrastructure, private debt and real estate asset classes, it said.