Sam Gaynor in

Sam Gaynor

Critic · DISC type C
Board Member at Ascendex Underwriters
📍 San Francisco, California, United States

Sam Gaynor is a Managing Director at Altamont Capital Partners, where he leads the firms Financial Services practice. He specializes in incubating and scaling new platforms, particularly in the insurance sector, and was named one of GrowthCaps Top 40 Under 40 Growth Investors. He earned a B. A. in Economics and Chinese from Washington University in St. Louis.

Outside of work, Sam is active in his community, serving on non-profit boards and having helped launch a business incubator for women in East Palo Alto. He lives in San Francisco with his wife, daughter, a dog, and a cat, and is involved with his local synagogue, Congregation Beth Sholom.

He has overseen the launch of eight new financial services companies over the last decade, building them from the ground up.

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Experience
17 Years
Current Role
Board Member
Job Level
Mid-senior
Location
San Francisco, California, United States
Personality Overview

How Sam shows up

ROI Driven
Information Seeker
Critic

They choose to analyze logically and value facts to emotions. They are quite likely to negotiate on pricing or other key terms. They don’t appreciate bells and whistles unless backed by data.

Priorities

Topics Sam cares about

Insurance Platform Incubation
He specializes in building and launching new insurance and financial services companies from scratch, having overseen the creation of eight such platforms in the last decade.
Financial Services Investing
As head of the financial services practice, he focuses on insurance, asset and wealth management, and specialty finance. He serves on the boards of numerous portfolio companies.
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Career

Work history

9-2025
Board Member
Ascendex Underwriters
3-2024
Member - Mosaic Chapter
YPO
11-2023
Board Member
Hadron Insurance
7-2023
Board Member
Augment Risk
7-2022
Board Member
Mulberri, Inc.
In the press

Media appearances

No media yetWe could not find public media appearances for this person.
Education
2004 - 2008
BA
Washington University in St. Louis
1998 - 2004
Education details unavailable
Belmont Hill School
Social presence
in
Behavioral profile

DISC profile (public)

C

Calculativeness (C)

Calculativeness (C) reflects the degree to which a person is likely to be cautious, systematic and analytical. Those scoring high tend to emphasise quality and accuracy.

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