Steve Lessar started his career as a U.S. Army officer before moving into finance, and went on to co-found secondaries businesses at both Goldman Sachs and BlackRock prior to joining Apollo—giving him a track record of building these platforms at multiple major firms rather than just working within them. He's known for pushing complex, custom-structured deals over standard ones and for combining secondary-market experience with direct-investing style underwriting, particularly in GP-led transactions, which helped earn him a spot on Private Equity News' list of the most influential people in secondaries for 2026.