John Tassone

John S. Tassone is a family-office investment executive with roughly 25 years of experience spanning investment banking, wealth management, and multi-family offices. He began his career in investment banking as a Director at Deutsche Bank Securities in New York, where he helped originate and execute more than 25 merger-advisory, debt, private-equity capital-raise, and public-offering transactions totaling in excess of $12 billion for family offices and institutions. He then moved into the family-office and UHNW advisory world, holding senior roles at GenSpring Family Offices, Deltec Wealth Management, BakerAvenue Wealth Management (the source of his [hidden] email), and Lido Advisors (Senior Vice President).

In 2012 he co-founded SteelBridge Private Wealth Advisors, serving as Co-Founder and Chief Investment Officer through May 2018 and building an advisory practice for ultra-high-net-worth families out of Naples, Florida. SteelBridge's practice was absorbed by Boston Private in 2018, where Tassone served as an Executive Managing Director. Since January 2022 he has been at FFT Wealth Management (Forbes Family Trust), a multi-family office and outsourced CIO serving over 250 families and 50 institutions, where he is Managing Director and Director of Investment Research, sitting on a ~12-person investment team.

Academically, Tassone holds a B.S. in Business Management from Cornell University's Dyson School, a Juris Doctor (JD) from Albany Law School, and an MBA in Accounting from Union College's Graduate School of Management. He is a CAIA (Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst) charterholder, reflecting his focus on alternatives and private markets. Outside of work he has served as a board member and treasurer of the Wounded Veterans Relief Fund.

At FFT he is responsible for due diligence and monitoring of both public and private investments, as well as asset allocation, portfolio construction, and risk management for client families. He is a recurring speaker on private-markets and manager-selection topics — appearing in Dakota's "Dakota Live!" interview series, on Private Markets Insider, and on a panel titled "The Nuts and Bolts of Selecting Managers for Optimal Portfolio Results" at the 42nd Private Wealth Management Summit.

• Allocator, not primarily a direct angel: His verifiable work is selecting and monitoring outside fund managers for a multi-family office — a recommended list of roughly 75–100 funds overseen by a 12-person team. Note that the "angel investor / seed" label in the source stub could not be corroborated with any specific startup checks.
• Private credit is the current top priority: As reported by Citywire, private credit is the area FFT is "homing in on" as his leading search focus.
• Broad alternatives mandate: Coverage spans private equity, venture, hedge funds, and private markets alongside traditional public assets; his team describes itself as generalists comfortable researching across both public and alternative asset classes.
• Manager selection discipline: He publicly frames his edge around rigorous manager due diligence and selection criteria (the theme of his Private Wealth Management Summit panel), rather than thematic bets on individual companies.
• Institutional/UHNW lens: Two-plus decades serving family offices and ultra-high-net-worth families means his "yes" is driven by fit within a diversified, risk-managed multi-asset portfolio — quality of the GP, repeatability of the strategy, and risk-adjusted return.