John Simmons is the Chief Investment Officer at Rothschild Wealth Partners, where he leads manager research with a focus on strategies outside the public markets. He runs the due diligence process that determines which managers reach the firm’s platform and how advisors incorporate them into client portfolios, with a particular emphasis on private credit, private real estate, and private equity. John brings 36 years of experience to the role, along with an ability to translate the complexity of alternative investments into language clients can understand and act on.
John’s career is a study in building things from the ground up. He began as an engineer at Schlumberger Industries before pivoting to finance, eventually spending 25 years at Morgan Stanley, where he retired as a Managing Director and served on the executive committee of the firm’s Alternative Investment Partners division, a $20 billion private markets business. After Morgan Stanley, he became a partner at Ovation Partners, an early entrant in private credit that was later acquired by BC Partners. He subsequently founded Bridger Advisors, an advisory firm focused on helping private real estate, private credit, and private equity managers grow from early-stage funding to institutional capital. He also serves as Senior Advisor to NXSTEP Partners in Austin and as an independent director of the Origin Real Estate Credit Fund. John earned his Bachelor of Electrical Engineering from Georgia Institute of Technology.
John has been a long-standing steward of the Colorado landscape he calls home. He served as Board President of the Crested Butte Land Trust for 13 years, during which the organization grew to protect roughly 7,000 acres in the Gunnison headwaters. He has also served on the boards of Tough Enough to Wear Pink and Yellowstone Forever, and on the Georgia Tech advisory board.
John is based in Crested Butte, Colorado where he enjoys cycling and golf.
