Steve grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area and had a passion for sports from a very early age. He played shortstop for his San Francisco high school team, which at one point was ranked #1 in California for Division 5 schools, and wanted to go to a college that was located in a city, had a strong liberal arts program, and a Division 1 baseball program. Steve was recruited to play baseball at several schools and chose to attend the University of Pennsylvania.

At Penn, he was a history major and played 4 years of Varsity Baseball, serving as a captain his Senior year. Upon graduating, he wasn’t sure what was next but was interested in learning more about the financial markets. He initially worked at the private wealth management firm Bessemer Trust. While working at Bessemer, Steve was able to gain exposure to business development, tax and estate planning, philanthropic services, and investing, a well rounded introduction to the financial world. He grew particularly interested in real estate while reviewing the real estate holdings of Bessemer clients, and decided that he wanted to pursue a career in this area.

Steve came to Columbia because of its strong real estate program. For his first summer, he worked at Liquid Reality in California, started by CBS alumni Scott Landress. There he started to analyze investments and understand real estate transactions in the secondary market. After graduation, he worked with a former Liquid Partner on a luxury development in the Dominican Republic anchored by a new Aman Resort. The development had been stalled due to the financial crisis and the development needed restructuring. Steve had spent a summer in high school living in the Dominican Republic while training at the Oakland Athletics baseball academy outside of Santo Domingo, and was excited to be involved with a Dominican project.

After his work on the Dominican project, Steve then moved to Penn Square Real Estate group as Director of Investor Relations. Penn Square focused on capital raising for several real estate funds and funds of funds for institutional investors.

While he was building depth in real estate, his fiance and now wife Monique was gaining significant traction with her namesake company MONIQUE PÉAN, an award winning sustainably focused fine jewelry company. Three years ago, Steve joined her and became COO of MONIQUE PÉAN. The business, now 9 years old, was seeing rapid growth and there was a need for someone to help run the many aspects of the business. Despite Steve’s previous focus on real estate, the CBS education prepared him well for the COO role of a luxury goods company and he has greatly enjoyed the challenge and excitement of wearing many hats in a growing business.

When reflecting on the Feldberg Fellowship, Steve was not only appreciative of having been selected but also for having been such an early member. “At the time, it was great to be part of a much smaller group and the small size was great for building strong bonds. As the Feldberg community has grown I think it is equally exciting now because of all of the highly accomplished and intelligent people that have come into the network and the accompanying opportunities to make new friends and learn from each other.” The change that Steve has seen with the growth of the Feldberg community matches well with changes in his family life as he and Monique have welcomed a new member to their family, a daughter named Seine.