Sean Baenen
Head of Corporate Development & Managing Partner
612.367.8804 | sean@
Sean leads all M&A at NorthRock including acquisitions, divestments, joint ventures and minority investments. Sean is also the firm’s Managing Partner and a member of its Board of Directors. Prior to his current role, Sean was NorthRock’s Group President, driving the business from $2.5B to $6.5B in assets under management and leading its partnership with Sammons Financial Group.
Prior to joining NorthRock, Sean was a long-time entrepreneur in Silicon Valley with a successful track record in the FinTech and professional sports industries. This followed work with some of the world’s most-known consumer financial sponsors (KKR, Friedman, Fleisher & Lowe, TPG and L Catterton) as an advisor, executive, and professional investor. His experience included helping lead the successful growth turnaround of ClearChoice Holdings and serving as a principal investor/founding executive of Virtue Labs, LLC.
From 2007-2011, Sean ran all front-end operations for Guthy|Renker ($2B consumer products firm) as Chief Operating Officer. He began his career in 1992 with Andersen Consulting, joining his first start up in 1999 as the sixteenth employee of Oxygen Media.
In addition to serving as NorthRock’s Managing Partner, he is also a corporate Director and Vice Chairman of Foundation X – NorthRock’s 501(c)(3) grantmaking organization.