News & Analysis

StepStone nabs PCG pro

StepStone, a San Diego area advisory firm founded by three ex-PCG executives including its former president, has hired PCG’s former head of research, Jay Rose. Rose is the sixth former PCG employee to move across town to StepStone.

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US advisory firm StepStone Group has hired a key executive, Jay Rose, from cross-town gatekeeper Pacific Corporate Group.

Rose

Rose, whose departure from PCG was made public yesterday, will head StepStone’s portfolio management functions.

Rose was the head of research for PCG affiliate Pacific Corporate Group Asset Management and was a member of the La Jolla, California firm’s investment and management committees.

“We’re thrilled to have Jay join StepStone,” Monte Brem, the firm’s chief executive, told PEO. In addition to Rose’s unique experience building portfolios for large intuitional investors, particularly pension funds, Brem said Rose is a good match for the firm’s corporate culture.

Rose is the sixth former PCG employee to join StepStone, which was founded earlier this year by Brem, PCG’s former president, along with former PCG chief investment officer Thomas Keck and former PCG managing director Jose Fernandez. StepStone’s vice president of business development, Brey Jones, and research analyst John Kettnich also spent time working for PCG.

Brem previously told PEO that StepStone’s corporate culture relies in part on a shared ownership structure – a lack of which, sources say, prompted Brem and others’ exodus from PCG, as well as the February launch of PCG AM, up to half of which will eventually be owned by a handful of employees.  

“Our view is the investment specialists are really the key to building the business,” he

Brem

said. “You want to make sure that you have equity ownership and profit participation in the hands of the people that are doing the investing. The whole team has equity, the whole team has profit participation.”

Approximately 80 percent of StepStone’s equity is distributed to team members, and 90 percent of its profits go to employees, Brem said. The balance of each goes to the George Kaiser Family Foundation, an investor in StepStone and one of its three clients. The Kuwait Investment Authority and the Los Angeles Fire and Police Pensions are the firm’s other clients.

StepStone plans to have 20 investment professionals on staff within the next 12 to 18 months, Brem said.