Martin Stein – Founder and Managing Director
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Martin Stein is a Managing Director of Blackford Capital. Mr. Stein has ten years of private equity experience and leads the firm's acquisition sourcing activities and serves on the boards of portfolio companies. Currently, he serves on the Board of Directors for Industrial Piping, Inc., Best Security Industries, and Zumasys. Additionally, he is the Chairman of the Board of Amtech. Mr. Stein has also served on the Boards of four prior Blackford Capital portfolio companies. Mr. Stein has been involved in over a dozen acquisitions, investments, and exits.
Prior to founding Blackford Capital, Mr. Stein worked as a consultant with Mercer Management Consulting where he developed growth strategies for Fortune 500 clients such as Sears, Dow Chemicals, Searle Pharmaceuticals, Pfizer, and PacifiCare Health Systems. While at Mercer, Mr. Stein also played a leading role in helping develop the firm's intellectual property and knowledge management systems including serving as the team leader for The Profit Zone, a best-selling business book written by David Morrison and Adrian Slywotzky. Mr. Stein has experience in a variety of different industries including plastic injection molding, chemicals, pharmaceuticals, industrial equipment, packaging, retail, health care, and home furnishings.
Previously, Mr. Stein worked as a consultant with the Council for Excellence in Government where he implemented private sector management strategies to improve the organizational efficiency of various executive branches of the federal government such as the Department of Labor, the Federal Aviation Administration, and the Department of Energy.
Mr. Stein has published three Harvard Business School cases as well as ten articles on mergers and acquisitions, private equity, operations, and strategy. He has been a speaker at numerous industry and trade show conferences. He received his BA, with honors, from the University of Chicago, where he was a College Honors Scholar and was selected by USA Today as one of the "Best and Brightest Leaders in America." He is a graduate of the Coro Fellows Program in St. Louis, Missouri. He received his MBA from Harvard Business School with a focus in operations.
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Tony Kiehn – Managing Director
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Tony Kiehn is a Managing Director at Blackford Capital, LLC. As Managing Director, Mr. Kiehn oversees all of Blackford Capital’s global operations including portfolio company performance, finance/treasury, IT, due diligence, and recruitment. He serves as Chairman of the Board for Best Security Industries (www.bestsecurityindustries.com) and Industrial Piping Inc. (www.goipi.com) and is on the Board of Directors of Unimacts. Mr. Kiehn has also served on the boards of three other former Blackford Capital portfolio companies. Mr. Kiehn has been involved in over a dozen acquisitions, investments, and exits.
Prior to Blackford Capital, Mr. Kiehn had an extensive career as both an operator and an investor, with a particular focus on start-up, high tech, international, and manufacturing businesses. Most recently, Mr. Kiehn was CEO for PowerFile, Inc., a leading manufacturer of optical storage device manufacturer, and he led the successful recapitalization of the business with Sequoia Capital
Prior to PowerFile, Mr. Kiehn served as the Managing Director for Conxion Europe, one of the largest hosting and content distribution firms on the continent. While at Conxion, Mr. Kiehn was responsible for developing and servicing key strategic relationships with Microsoft and Symantec. Prior to Conxion, Mr. Kiehn served as the Managing Director of SpeedPort, an Amsterdam-based start-up that built and maintained data centers throughout Europe. Mr. Kiehn was responsible for the sale of SpeedPort to Conxion in August of 2000.
Mr. Kiehn also held various senior positions while in Hong Kong at Jardine Matheson, one of the largest holding companies in the non-Japan Asia. While at Jardine Matheson, Mr. Kiehn served as General Manager of Matheson PFC, one of Asia’s largest mutual fund intermediaries. He was responsible for managing the strategic and financial relationships with 82 fund houses representing 1,100 funds. Mr Kiehn also held various strategic roles related to Jardine’s commercial technology group. He managed partnerships with Sun, Netscape, and Hong Kong's largest ISP.
Mr. Kiehn began his career in finance and operations at General Electric. While at GE, Mr. Kiehn he worked in the Power Generation, Plastics, Electrical Distribution & Control, and Appliance businesses. He also participated in GE Capital’s initial acquisitions throughout Asia and worked on the Corporate Audit Staff.
Mr. Kiehn has lived in Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, Taiwan, China, The Netherlands, and Hungary. Mr. Kiehn received an MBA from the Harvard Business School and holds a BA from the University of Nebraska at Omaha.
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