Steve Baffico has been an accomplished financial services executive and industry thought leader over the last fifteen years with elite firms such as BlackRock and Guggenheim Partners. His focus and passion is on understanding and meeting the needs of clients across the institutional, high net worth and individual investor spectrum, spanning over solutions including traditional and alternative asset management, real estate and private equity.

Formerly, Mr. Baffico was a Senior Managing Director and Head of U.S. Retail for Guggenheim Funds (2009-2011). Mr. Baffico oversaw all areas of the US Intermediary business including distribution, marketing, product development, national accounts, investment banking, business analytics, product specialists, strategic initiatives and all support teams for intermediary-sold investments through Guggenheim Partners. He also led several portfolio company integrations during his tenure and launched the Guggenheim Funds brand to the retail intermediary market.

Prior to Guggenheim, Mr. Baffico was an executive with BlackRock for more than a decade (1998 - 2009) where he served in various senior leadership capacities across distribution, sales management, investment banking, and strategy throughout his tenure. His leadership roles and responsibilities included retail and institutional markets, spanning both private and public sector asset management initiatives. Mr. Baffico moved up through the Blackrock organization quickly. He was named one of the youngest Managing Directors in the firm's history and lead capital raising efforts of over $25 billion during his tenure there.

Steve is an accomplished veteran of both building and managing strategic businesses in the financial services industry and is widely regarded as one of the industry's top young talents.

Mr. Baffico is also a frequent contributor to the financial media, as he is regularly quoted in industry publications such as The Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Barron's, Fortune, Financial Times, Investment News, Dow Jones, Bloomberg, Sirius Satellite Radio and numerous others. He also appears frequently on business television including Thompson-Reuters TV, The Street.com, CNBC, Bloomberg Television, Fox Business News, ABC and other industry outlets.