ABOUT STEVEN
Dr. Steven Kaufman is an accomplished private equity investor, entrepreneur, and philanthropist.
Steven manages his family assets with a dynastic focus on thesis-driven opportunistic investments in three asset classes which include real estate financing, real estate investment, and private equity in small growth-companies.
Steven has held C-Level positions in various real estate enterprises for 20 years and has been investing in real estate for almost 30 years. During that time, he coordinated over $1 billion in real estate financing for companies like American Express, Hewlett Packard, and Exxon Mobil and founded ZeusLending.com which is the leading online provider of real estate financing in the United States. He also founded ZeusEquityGroup.com which is a commercial real estate investment firm that acquires and develops trophy assets, and he currently manages a portfolio of approximately $1 billion in multifamily, office, retail, and healthcare assets.
At Zeus, Steven manages a team that is responsible for more than $7 billion of retail mortgage loan originations. According to Inc. Magazine, with more than 17,000 transactions, Zeus is the 37th fastest growing private financial service firm in the United States. Steven founded New York Mutual which provides bespoke lending, servicing, and financial management services to institutional and private clients throughout the United States and abroad. Steven’s financing enterprises have spanned 3 economic cycles, and his disciplined focus on capital preservation has resulted in a best-in-class underwriting with no annual losses.
Steven has been interviewed by local and national news organizations like FOX, ABC, CBS, CNN, and Bloomberg on the financial markets, and he is a contributing author at Entrepreneur.com. Steven sat as an Honorary Chairman of the Business Advisory Council of the National Republican Congressional Committee. He was an Ernst and Young Global Entrepreneur of the Year Finalist. For more than a decade, he served on the board of directors for the oldest and largest real estate investment association in the United States (The RICH Club). He served on the board of directors for the Houston Mortgage Association and the Anti-Defamation League (ADL). Steven has served on the Overseas Appropriations Committee for the Jewish Federation of Houston, and the Dean’s Advisory Council for the University of Houston School of Business. National Mortgage Professional Magazine has repeatedly ranked Steven as one of the “Top 40 Most Influential Mortgage Professionals in the United States”, and the Houston Business Journal ranked him as one of the “Top CEO’s in Houston”.
Steven was born in Brooklyn, and as a child his family relocated to Baytown, Texas where he was raised. Steven graduated with high honors from the University of Houston with a B.S. in accounting and holds a Certified Public Accountant (CPA) designation. He has a Master’s Degree in Economic Development and Entrepreneurship from the University of Houston. Steven completed the Strategic Marketing Management Program at Harvard Business School, the Global Private Equity Programme at Oxford University, and earned his PhD in psychology, with a thesis on performance psychology, organizational leadership, and group trust, from The Chicago School.
Steven is the founder of The Fanatical Change Foundation. His philanthropic recognition includes the Houston Astros “Hometown Hero”, the City of Houston “Humanitarian Award”, the Lululemon “Modern Day Man”, and the United States Presidential “Life-Time Achievement Award”.
Steven is a four time world champion power-lifter and 2015 world record holder. He completed the Houston Marathon, ran with the bulls in Spain, and finished second in the Southwest Regional Amateur Arm-wrestling Championship. Steven has summited Mt. Kilimanjaro, summited Mt. Fuji, trekked to Mt. Everest Base Camp in 2019 and returned to Mt. Everest in 2022 to compete in an invitation only obstacle course race and ultra-marathon with adventure athletes from across the globe where he set a Guinness World Record.