John Kelly, Co-founder & Partner
John has more than 35 years of experience in building profitable new financial services businesses across a wide range of products and services. John now focuses on evaluating direct investment opportunities and raising capital for alternative asset managers.
Previously, John was Global COO of Liquidnet with a mandate from the founder to restore growth, increase market share, and strengthen operational control of this innovative and unique institutional electronic trading firm.
From September 2003 to March 2009, John worked with John L. Thornton, former President of Goldman Sachs, providing advisory services to private investors and management in a variety of industries in the U.S. and China, and completed several direct investments in privately held companies in the U.S.
John also held several senior positions with Société Générale (“SG”) in the U.S. where he helped build their U.S. investment banking business as COO and Head of Capital Markets. John was a member of the Management Committee of SG Americas, the investment bank’s Executive Committee, Investment Banking Committee, the Equity Screening Committee, and he was chairman of the Debt Screening Committee and the Risk Committee.
Earlier in his career, John worked at Rockefeller Family & Associates where he managed private equity investments for Meriwether Capital; had been Head of Asian Fixed Income Capital Markets at Bear Stearns; worked for Credit Suisse First Boston in Capital Markets and Investment Banking; and was a commercial lending officer at Citibank.
John currently serves as Chairman of the Board of The Victory Funds, a $55 billion mutual fund complex comprising equity and fixed income products and smart beta ETFs, and is a non-executive director of Caledonia Mining Corporation, a southern Africa focused gold miner.
John is a member of The Executive Forum (EF), a selective invitation only group of professionals with at least 10 years of current or past C-Suite or Corporate Officer experience and board service at market-moving companies, including portfolio companies owned by the most innovative PE firms. EF members share a passion for “what’s next” to drive business growth of tomorrow and pride themselves on the ability to readily access trusted, expert colleagues who can fill most business needs for executive talent and thought leadership.
John has a BA in American Studies (history and literature) from Yale University and an MBA from the Yale School of Management.
John is a Registered Representative of BA Securities, LLC.*
Steve Hines, Co-Founder & Partner
Steve has over 35 years of principal investment and investment banking experience. He has worked at some of the most highly respected firms in the financial services industry and has distinguished himself as a deal-maker and trusted advisor among the most demanding of clients.
Steve's career includes extensive involvement in raising capital for alternative asset managers, ranging from origination of mandates to raise funds for institutional investment managers and sourcing direct investments for private companies as well as co-investing.
Prior to Active Capital Partners, Steve was a co-founding partner of McCarvill Capital and he was President of First Avenue Partners, North America, a global private capital raising firm headquartered in London.
Steve has participated as a principal in a number of transactions in the U.S. and has advised both private equity firms and corporate clients in M&A and corporate financing transactions.
Earlier in his career, Steve worked at Goldman Sachs in New York for over 10 years where he focused on mergers and acquisitions, and private company recapitalizations of family-owned and operated businesses. Subsequently, he spent four years working in merchant banking at Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette in New York as a Senior Managing Director working on both M&A advisory and principal investments with many financial sponsors.
Steve was a General Partner of the Beacon Group, an M&A advisory and principal investing boutique, which was sold to J.P. Morgan Chase. Upon the sale of the Beacon Group to J.P. Morgan, Steve was a General Partner of J.H. Whitney, a private equity investment firm focused on growth capital.
Steve holds an A.B. degree in Economics from Harvard College, and an M.B.A degree from Harvard Business School.
Steve is a Registered Representative of BA Securities, LLC.*
Brennan Warble, Partner
Brennan has more than 30 years of experience gained from operational, executive, and strategic leadership positions in institutional capital markets. Brennan has been on the cutting edge of risk transfer and capital intermediation across equity, equity derivative, fixed income and convertible securities for his entire career.
Through his positions of leadership in capital markets, Brennan has developed extensive relationships with institutional investors of various profiles including insurance companies, pension funds, private equity and hedge funds, as well as endowments, foundations, and large family offices.
In Brennan’s most recent positions at Liquidnet, Tremor Technologies and Citadel Securities, he developed and implemented new technologies combining data sciences, artificial intelligence, and machine learning to automate and enhance risk transfer in the equity, insurance, and fixed income markets. He is a trusted, solutions-based resource to the most sophisticated institutional investors advising on how to build, implement and integrate new trading infrastructure to add alpha, strengthen risk management and reduce reliance on manual intervention. He has consistently built and led high performing teams across multiple geographies, products and asset classes.
Earlier in his career, Brennan spent 19 years at Merrill Lynch where he served on the global markets operating committee and held numerous senior leadership roles including Head of Americas distribution, Head of Latin American Equities and Global Head of Convertible Bonds.
Brennan is a member of The National Organization of Investment Professionals (NOIP), a diverse group of the most senior traders, analysts, sales managers, and investors from the “buy-side,” the “sell-side,” proprietary trading firms, market makers, national securities exchanges, and experts in asset classes outside of listed equities. Membership is limited and by invitation only. NOIP is focused on fostering a favorable regulatory environment for institutional participation in fair and open securities markets which are both efficient and effective.
Brennan holds a BA from St. Lawrence University and matriculated at NYU’s Stern School of business.
Brennan is a Registered Representative of BA Securities, LLC.*
Kristen Belfi, Managing Director
Kristen has extensive relationships in the institutional investor community based on nearly 20 years of marketing and executing fund management and direct investment opportunities. Her relationships include the most sophisticated investors among public and private pension plans, insurance companies, endowments, foundations, and other professional asset managers. Kristen was most recently a Partner at Mercury Capital Advisors.
In addition to her client relationship management and placement responsibilities, Kristen was a member of the Operating Committee and Direct Deal Committee at Mercury which was responsible for the selection of new fund clients and co-investments.
Kristen’s prior experience focused on investor relations at Tudor Investment Corporation where she specialized in private equity funds, and Mount Kellett Capital Management where she was Head of Client Services, also focused on private equity.
Earlier in her career, Kristen was active in private equity at Citigroup, where she evaluated direct equity and mezzanine investments, and investment banking at Salomon Smith Barney where she was an analyst in the M&A group focused on Corporate Sales & Divestitures.
Kristen received her BA in Economics from Yale University. Prior to choosing economics as her major, Kristen had been on a pre-med track which enabled her to participate in research programs at The Jackson Laboratory, The Rockefeller University, and was a recipient of a Howard Hughes Grant for independent scientific research.
Kristen is a Registered Representative of BA Securities, LLC.*
Martin Shahbazian, Managing Director
Marty has more than 35 years of experience building operational, financial, and risk and control infrastructures for global financial institutions – a demanding environment of capital allocation and regulatory complexity. He now focuses on providing advice to investors, boards, and management teams on strategic finance and operations management in a wide range of commercial, industrial, and business services settings. Marty has broad expertise in identifying and facilitating the drivers of value creation while mitigating operational and financial risks.
Previously, Marty was a Partner with Ernst & Young’s (“EY”) Financial Services Office and Capco (Capital Markets Consulting) providing consulting services in: finance, accounting, operations, treasury, cash management, regulatory reporting, customer protection, operational risk, internal controls, and forensics.
Prior to joining EY and Capco, Marty held senior leadership roles in the financial industry at Merrill Lynch as Americas Head of Risk & Control (Global Markets), and at Citibank as a member of the Global Business Transformation Office (Markets and Banking).
Marty is a Certified Public Accountant, inactive license, in the State of New Jersey and a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants.
Marty is actively engaged in the community as a volunteer and team sponsor for the St. Michael’s and Joseph’s parish grammar school girls’ and boys’ basketball league in Union City, NJ, that’s been in existence for 50+ years. He is also active in the local high school mentoring students to prepare for in-person interviews and with college students for resume writing and interview preparation for their first career opportunity.