Eric Peiffer

About

Eric Peiffer ‘91 grew up near Springfield, Ohio, and selected Miami because of its beautiful campus and the “unparalleled quality” of the undergraduate business curriculum. “Now, in 2021, I believe that still to be the case!”

Inspired by a class taught by now-retired FSB Dean Marc Rubin, Eric chose to major in accountancy, noting that “accountancy complemented my finance degree; I knew that in a raging recession (into which I graduated) I would be able to land a solid job.” While at Miami, Eric joined some other FSB students, including accountancy peers, in founding the First Miami Student Credit Union.

After graduating with a double major in accountancy and finance, he joined a consulting firm in Chicago (now part of Navigant), followed by Deloitte in Denver, which he describes as “a fantastic experience, as a tax CPA who was able to ski and mountain bike every weekend.” Four years after graduating from Miami, Eric attended Harvard Business School full-time for his MBA. “I was grateful for the quality of the accountancy program at FSB for preparing me so thoroughly for this rigorous experience. Having the accountancy degree was like going into battle fully armed – I underestimated its value even while at Miami.”

After HBS, Eric transitioned into an investment banking career, spending time in New York City before landing back in Ohio, where he helped build out the fixed-income effort at KeyBanc Capital Markets (KBCM). Eighteen years later, as a managing director, he also runs a group called High Grade and Leveraged Capital Markets. As a senior-level investment banker, he heads a team responsible for raising billions of dollars of capital a year via bond offerings for large corporations and private equity firms.

“I most enjoy the thrill of engaging with, advising, and helping our clients. While bond offerings to finance M&A are exciting, just as rewarding has been helping a huge number of KBCM’s clients do capital raises to ensure adequate capital was available during the height of the pandemic in 2020. Whether advising and helping clients with assurance and tax work, strategic consulting and M&A, or raising capital in the bond or equity markets, meaningfully contributing to your clients’ success brings a lot of long-term satisfaction to a career. Working with people you really like at those clients makes it even better.”