Association to honor San Francisco alum with Citation

The UNO Alumni Association will bestow its Citation for Alumni Achievement award upon 1989 UNO graduate Tony Kiehn during the university’s December 2022 Commencement ceremony Friday, Dec. 16, at Baxter Arena.

Kiehn is founder and president of Fortis Pacific, a San Francisco-based early-stage investment network. Kiehn will receive his award during the 2:00 p.m. ceremony, one of two UNO is hosting Dec. 16.

The Citation, inaugurated in 1949, is the association’s highest honor and the university’s oldest award. It encompasses career achievement, community service, business and professional engagement and fidelity to UNO. Kiehn is the 186th graduate to receive the award.

Kiehn is a first-generation college graduate who earned a BSBA in accounting from UNO after an active student career. He served five years in the student senate, was a student ambassador and president of Beta Alpha Psi, was active in the Student Programming Organization and took photos for the athletic department. He later earned an MBA from Harvard Business School in 1995.

His professional career has included assignments around the world. It began with General Electric, where he worked in a variety of operational and financial posts over four years in Hong Kong, China, Japan, Indonesia and Europe. He continued to work overseas into 2002 through posts with: Jardine Matheson, one of Hong Kong’s oldest and largest conglomerates; SpeedPort/Versatel, an Amsterdam-based tech startup that built and operated a global IP backbone; and, Conxion, a global IP network and content distribution company.

Kiehn returned to the United States full time in 2003 as an executive of Sequoia Capital-backed PowerFile based in Santa Clara, California. From 2006 to 2016 he was founder and managing director of Blackford Capital, a San Francisco-based private equity firm. In 2011 he co-founded Fortis Pacific. Through it he has invested in, started or advised companies in North America and Greater China focused on FinTech, blockchain and digital assets, data centers, renewable energy, global supply chain management, consumer electronics and more. He also served two years as president and CFO of BOSONIC, a leading institutional infrastructure company operating in Digital Asset markets.

Alongside his professional career, Kiehn has led an active volunteer and philanthropic life. That includes a spot on the board of the Maverick Venture Fund in the College of Business Administration’s Center for Innovation, Entrepreneurship and Franchising. He also has been a board member for the Harvard Business School Association of Northern California, St. Vincent De Paul School in San Francisco (advisory board chair), the St. Vincent De Paul Men’s Club (president) and the St. Ignatius College Preparatory Fathers’ Club.

Kiehn was raised in Omaha and graduated from Bryan High. He and his wife, Sara, have two children, Julia and Emma.