Founding Board Member Gordon Liao

AAAIM

Mr. Liao is a leader in the small-to-middle-market buyout industry. He is currently a Vice President with Baird Capital Partners, a $300 mm private equity fund based in Chicago focused on late stage buyouts in the lower-end of the middle market.

Prior to BCP, Mr. Liao was a Principal and Founding Member of Reliant Equity Investors, a $120 mm private equity firm, also focused on buyouts at the lower-end of the middle market, where he led the execution and management of three investments for the firm. Prior to the founding of Reliant in 2001, Mr. Liao worked at Wind Point Partners, another middle-market private equity firm, and divine, Inc, a publicly traded internet incubator. He started his career with Merrill Lynch in their Investment Banking group.

Mr. Liao is the founder of the Asian American Business Association of Harvard Business School and was a founding member of the Asian American Artists' Collectives of Chicago and Boston. He is a produced and published playwright and poet, as well as a spoken word artist and singer-songwriter.

He received a BS with Highest Honors from the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana and his MBA from Harvard Business School, where he was a Toigo Fellow. A founding member of AAAIM, Mr. Liao's lifelong passion involves promoting the visibility and empowerment of underserved communities through wealth creation and the arts.