Brett Stier

Brett Stier is a Managing Director of Private Equity Investments at Thrivent, the Fortune 500 Minneapolis-based financial-services and insurance organization (roughly $194B in assets under management/advisement as of year-end 2024, serving 2.4M+ clients). He has been part of Thrivent's private equity team since approximately May 2016 and works from the Greater Minneapolis–St. Paul area. In this role he helps manage an institutional portfolio of private equity fund commitments and co-investments rather than making direct venture or angel investments.

His academic and professional credentials are rooted in accounting and finance. He earned undergraduate degrees from the University of Minnesota's Carlson School of Management (BSB, class of '07, in areas spanning accounting, finance, and entrepreneurial management) and an MBA from Duke University's Fuqua School of Business, where he was active in the Private Equity Club (co-president) and the Finance Club (treasurer). He is a CFA charterholder and an (inactive) CPA.

Beyond his day job, Stier serves on the Carlson School of Management Alumni Board, where he has been described as an institutional investor focused on alternative assets. His career reflects a consistent thread of institutional, fund-oriented private equity investing — sourcing and evaluating fund managers and co-investment opportunities in the lower-middle and middle market — rather than early-stage startup investing.

Thrivent's private equity program has grown substantially over roughly the past decade (team members have publicly described building the program from about $2.5B to $7.5B), and the firm continues to expand its middle-market co-investment strategy, including a 2025 structured-financing partnership with Dawson Partners.

• Invests as an institutional limited partner and co-investor, not as an angel — capital flows into private equity *funds* and alongside GPs, not directly into early-stage startups.
• Focus is the lower-middle and middle market, spanning buyouts and growth equity (per Thrivent's stated private equity strategy).
• Emphasis on manager selection and co-investment — partnering with fund managers and investing alongside them to enhance client solutions and deliver long-term value.
• Diversified/generalist mandate rather than a single named sector thesis; decisions are driven by manager quality, portfolio construction, and institutional risk/return objectives.
• *No publicly documented seed-stage or angel thesis exists for Brett Stier; claims to the contrary should be verified directly with him.*