Star Mountain Capital, a specialized investment manager with over $4 billion in assets under management, hired Charles Millard as senior advisor.
Millard has over 30 years of economic policy, investment advisory and wealth management experience and is a prominent speaker and writer within the pension and retirement investment plan space.
Millard is a former director of the United States Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC) with $100 billion in assets, which insures the pensions of over 40 million Americans. He was appointed by President George W. Bush and was the first director of the PBGC to be confirmed by the United States Senate. As director, Millard served as the CEO of the PBGC and carried the rank of Under Secretary.
Millard was also a managing director and head of pension relations at Citigroup, where he oversaw relationships with global pension investors. During his time with Citigroup, he also taught at the Yale School of Management on pensions and public policy and has served the World Economic Forum as a member of its Retirement Investment Systems Reform Project.
“We’re excited to have his insights and knowledge to help us continue to grow our business and add as much value as possible to all stakeholders,” Brett Hickey, founder and CEO of Star Mountain Capital, said. “Charles will help us ensure we provide best in class communications and reporting for investors to also help showcase the value to local communities, innovation and job creation as additional benefits to our differentiated returns.”
“Diversification is particularly important with the current high valuations across many sectors,” Millard said. “Star Mountain has a compelling business model, purpose-built to execute against the supply and demand imbalances and barriers to entry inherent with lending to and investing in growing U.S. small and medium-sized businesses which are an important part of the economy representing an estimated 44% of U.S. GDP.”
Prior to his appointment to the PBGC in 2007, Millard had a varied career in both private and public life, including service as a managing director with both Lehman Brothers and Prudential Securities. Immediately before joining the PBGC, Millard was a managing director at Broadway Partners, a national real estate investment and management firm in New York. He also served as president of BP Direct Securities, a broker-dealer associated with Broadway Partners, where he helped raise over one billion dollars for Broadway’s discretionary private equity real estate funds.
Millard also served as president of the New York City Economic Development Corp. (EDC) and Chairman of the New York City Industrial Development Agency in the administration of Mayor Rudolph Giuliani. In that role he oversaw large and significant parts of New York City infrastructure including the redevelopment of Times Square and 42nd Street. Prior to that role, he was twice elected to the New York City Council from the East Side of Manhattan.
Since leaving Citigroup, he has served as a senior advisor or consultant for AQR Capital Management, McKinsey, Syntax Data and ARS Financial. He is also a trustee director of Independent Governance Group (a UK pension services firm) and member of the board of directors of Mt. Logan Re and of 777 Re, both Bermuda-based reinsurance companies.
Millard holds a Bachelor of Arts Honors Degree, cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa, from Holy Cross College, where he received the Presidential Service Award, and a J.D. from Columbia Law School, where he was a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar.
