As a member of the Marketable Alternatives Research Team, Andrew is responsible for performing due diligence on marketable alternative managers for potential inclusion in client portfolios. Prior to joining the firm in 2018, Andrew was a Senior Portfolio Accountant at Parametric Portfolio Associates where he was accountable for leading audits, monitoring trading risks and preparing daily analyses. Before his career in finance, Andrew was a NFL kicker for the New York Jets. He received a Bachelor of Arts, double majoring in Finance and Marketing, from Washington State University. Andrew is a Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst (CAIA®) and is a CFA® charterholder and member of the CFA Society of Chicago and CFA Institute. With his free time, Andrew enjoys world travel, reading, hiking and is a Washington State Cougars superfan.
Episode 41: Use of Alternative Investment Strategies to Enhance the Risk Adjusted Returns of a Pension Fund Portfolio
May 2025 – Global Cap Intro 2025
Panayiotis Lambropoulos
Employees Retirement System of Texas
Panayiotis Lambropoulos
Employees Retirement System of Texas
Panayiotis Lambropoulos CFA, CAIA, FRM is a Portfolio Manager at the Employees Retirement System of Texas – a $38 billion retirement plan – located in Austin, Texas. His responsibilities include sourcing, analyzing and evaluating potential third party managers deploying all types of alternative investment strategies. His primary focus is on the Trust’s Absolute Return Portfolio along with opportunistic investments in Emerging Managers. Panayiotis holds a B.S in Business Administration with a concentration in Finance and Marketing from Boston College, and an M.B.A in General Management from Northwestern University. Panayiotis is also a CFA, CAIA and FRM Charterholder.
Katherine Molnar
Fairfax County Police Officers Retirement System
Katherine Molnar
Fairfax County Police Officers Retirement System
Ms. Molnar joined Fairfax County Retirement Systems in 2013 as a Senior Investment Officer responsible for managing the Fairfax County Police Officers Retirement System, a $1.3 billion plan. Her responsibilities include all aspects of portfolio management and oversight, including strategic and tactical asset and risk allocation, selection and supervision of external investment managers and risk management. From 2001 until 2012, Ms. Molnar was Vice President, Senior Research Analyst at AIG Investments’ Hedge Fund Solutions Group – both in London and New York. At AIG Investments, Ms. Molnar was responsible for due diligence procedures and research including: sourcing new managers, monitoring current hedge funds, analyzing portfolio risk and performance, making new investment recommendations to an investment committee as well as hedge fund asset allocation recommendations for portfolio construction. She was additionally responsible for portfolio reviews and overall asset allocation recommendations for external client portfolios. Previously, she was Vice President, Market Research Analyst at Citigroup Investments’ Alternative Investment Strategies group. Prior investment management experience includes positions at Paribas Asset Management as well as Trevor Stewart Burton & Jacobsen. Additionally, Ms. Molnar spent one year in Warsaw, Poland launching the first retail mutual funds available to the Polish market as well as two years in Frankfurt, Germany as an intern with J.P. Morgan. Ms. Molnar received a B.S. in Business Administration/Finance from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She is a CFA charterholder.
Mohamed Farid
World Bank
Mohamed Farid
World Bank
Mohamed Farid is a Principal Portfolio Manager / Head of Absolute Return Strategies at the World Bank Pension Fund, managing over $4 billion of Absolute Return Strategies portfolio. Mohamed has over 23 years of experience investing directly in hedge funds and is an active member of Investment Committee at the Pension Plan portfolio. Mohamed has opportunistically co-invested with some hedge fund managers and implemented internal hedging strategies.
Prior to joining the World Bank Pension Plan, Mohamed worked for Deloitte & Touche and KPMG financial consulting groups in Toronto, Canada, Washington D.C, Egypt and Thailand where he led acquisitions and bankruptcy engagements for leading clients in North America and Asia. Mohamed started his career in commercial banking. He holds a master’s degree from the Johns Hopkins University in International Economics and Political Science as well as a Master’s degree in Banking and Finance from Finafrica Foundation in Milan, Italy.
Anthony Tang
TCC Pension Plan
Anthony Tang
TCC Pension Plan
Anthony Tang is Head of Public Markets at TCC Pension Plan, a defined benefit pension plan established in 1940 for employees of the Toronto Transit Commission with $7.8 billion in net assets. He performs asset class coverage across public markets including long-only domestic and foreign equities, global fixed income, multi-asset and hedge funds/absolute return strategies.
Episode 40: Where are the Opportunities in Long Short Equity & What Makes a Good Manager
May 2025 – Global Cap Intro 2025
Julie Lauer Wurster
Albourne America
Julie Lauer Wurster
Albourne America
Julie Lauer Wurster is a Partner and Senior Analyst at Albourne America. Julie joined Albourne in 2007 and is responsible for the global long short equity strategy. Prior to joining Albourne, Julie was an analyst in the Absolute Return Strategy Group at General Motors Asset Management from 2003 to 2007. In this role Julie focused her time on the long/short equity managers. Julie also has related experience with Ford Motor Company and consulting experience with Deloitte & Touche. Julie earned a Master of Business Administration from Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business in 2003 and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Economics from Duke University in 1998.
Tim Berry
Lighthouse Group
Tim Berry
Lighthouse Group
Timothy Berry, CFA, Managing Director, Chair of the Equity Committee
Tim identifies investment strategy opportunities as well as analyzes and monitors portfolio construction and asset allocation. Tim is the head of the Lighthouse Global Equity Strategy Team, as well as a member of the Management Committee, the Investment Research Committee (IRC), and the Opportunistic Relative Value Strategy Team. Previously, Tim ran the hedge fund investment team at Private Advisors LLC, an institutional alternative investment manager where he invested in hedge fund managers across a broad variety of strategies for 14 years. He was a member of the hedge fund investment committees and the firm’s executive committee. Tim started his investment career at Chesapeake Capital Corporation, a commodity trader, where he analyzed fund performance and performed due diligence on alternative investments on behalf of the principals of the firm. Tim earned a master’s degree from Duke University and graduated with distinction with a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Virginia. He is a CFA charterholder and a member of the CFA Society of Virginia. Tim is also the chair of the Virginia 529 Investment Advisory Committee.
Matthew Galati
JP Morgan
Matthew Galati
JP Morgan
Matthew Galati is a Managing Director at JP Morgan Global Alternative Investment Solutions and oversees the Hedge Fund Due Diligence Team for the JP Morgan Private Bank channel. Prior to joining J.P. Morgan in 2012, Matt was an Equity Research Analyst for UBS and Lehman Brothers/Barclays Capital since 2005. Prior to equity research, Matt spent three years as an Investment Banking Analyst (most recently at Deutsche Bank). Matt is a CFA charter holder and graduated from Brown University with a B.A. in both Economics and Organizational Behavior/Management.
Marcus Storr
FERI
Marcus Storr
FERI
Marcus joined FERI in 2005. As Head of Alternative Investments he is responsible for Hedge Fund, Private Equity, manager selection and positioning of FERIs Alternative Investment Division including client reporting. He started his career in 1994 as an advisor to UHNWI before moving to London in 1998 joining the Investment Banking division of Robert Flemings Ltd. (acquired by JPMorgan). Until 2003 he was a Director within the Global Equities department of Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein in London. He has over 25 years’ experience in capital markets, corporate transactions, and manager selection. He has written several articles and book chapters on Alternative Investments and Hedge Funds which have been published in professional journals and industry magazines. Marcus holds a Masters Degree in Finance/Capital markets and International Management / Economics from Humboldt University Berlin in addition to a two-year apprenticeship as a bank manager. He is married and father of three children.
FERI is a specialist in Alternative Investments and one of the largest Investment Management firms in Germany based in Bad Homburg managing approximately EUR53bn including EUR14bn in Alternative Investments. FERI invests in Hedge Funds (UCITS and offshore) and Private Equity funds for Institutional Investors and UHNW / family offices mainly for German-speaking clients in Europe. FERI allocates to Alternative Investments since 1999 and has built up one of the largest Alternative Investment teams in Europe with approximately 50 employees.
Episode 39: Which Hedge Fund Strategies Protect Capital During a Market Sell Off?
May 2025 – Global Cap Intro 2025
Scott Radke
New Holland Capital
Scott Radke
New Holland Capital
Scott Radke is the Chief Executive Officer and Co-Chief Investment Officer at New Holland Capital (NHC). As CEO, Scott is responsible for leading, implementing, and growing NHC’s business activities. As Co-CIO, Scott is responsible for portfolio management, investment research, and portfolio risk alongside Bill Young with a special focus on liquid strategies. Scott is a member of the firm’s Financial Risk Management Committee and a member of the Investment Committee, which opines on investment and portfolio decisions across NHC’s business lines. Prior to the launch of NHC in 2006, Scott was a member of the Hedge Fund Group within a Dutch pension. Before that, Scott was a Vice President at Citigroup Global Markets and previously an Associate within the Insurance-related Structured Transactions Group at Goldman Sachs. Scott graduated magna cum laude from the University of Michigan with a BSE in Mechanical Engineering and received an MBA in Finance with distinction from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.
Robert Rafter
Morgan Stanley Investment Management
Robert Rafter
Morgan Stanley Investment Management
Rob is a portfolio manager and head of research on the AIP Hedge Fund team within Morgan Stanley Investment Management, responsible for overseeing the investment process and team across hedge fund strategies. He is also a member of the Investment Committee. Rob joined Morgan Stanley AIP in 2011 and has 19 years of professional experience. Prior to joining the firm, he served as vice president responsible for hedge fund investments at Colchis Capital Management, a boutique alternative investment manager. Previously, Rob was a segment producer at CNBC Business News and an analyst at Lehman Brothers, where he worked on the central funding desk within the Fixed Income Division. Rob received a B.A. in government from Georgetown University. He is a member of the Bond Club of Philadelphia and the CFA Society of Philadelphia. Rob holds the Chartered Financial Analyst designation.
Episode 38: Opportunities in Fixed Income Oriented Alternative Investment Strategies
April 2025 – Global Cap Intro 2025
Joe Tolen
Cambridge Associates
Joe Tolen
Cambridge Associates
Joe Tolen is a Senior Investment Director of Credit Strategies based at the London offices of Cambridge Associates.
Prior to joining Cambridge Associates in 2023, Joe was Director of Multi-Asset Strategies for the Indiana Public Retirement System (“INPRS”) for four years. In his role Joe was responsible for the formulation and implementation of the Absolute Return and Risk Parity portfolios (~$11.5bn of Defined Benefit assets). Within Absolute Return, Joe focused on allocations to Insurance Linked, Fixed Income Relative Value, Global Macro, Event Driven, Structured Credit, CTA, Multi-Strategy, Co-Investments, and Fund of Fund strategies. The Risk Parity portfolio was made up of direct manager allocations as well as an internal custom index. Before his role at INPRS, Joe worked on the Equity Derivatives Sales Trading desk for Morgan Stanley in London. In this role, Joe served as sales coverage for North American-based clients trading European options, futures, swaps, and exotics.
Joe holds a Bachelor of Science in Finance and Entrepreneurship from Indiana University and is a CAIA Charterholder.
Dulari Pancholi
NEPC
Dulari Pancholi
NEPC
Dulari’s investment career began in 2000 and she joined NEPC in 2006. Dulari leads NEPC’s hedge fund research and due diligence activities, in addition to providing consulting services for the non-traditional asset classes of NEPC’s various clients. Dulari is the Co-Head of NEPC’s Credit Beta Group which consolidates fixed income research efforts across all asset classes. She is also the Co-Head of NEPC’s Impact Investing Committee. Dulari is also frequent speaker at industry conferences on the topics of fixed income and Impact Investing.
Prior to joining NEPC in August of 2006, Dulari was Vice President of Operations of the Hedge Fund at Venus Capital Management. As Vice President, Dulari was independently responsible for all of the investment operations activity for two funds under management. Prior to that, Dulari was employed as a Research Associate at the Center for International Securities and Derivatives Market (CISDM). As a Research Associate, Dulari's responsibilities included understanding various databases, statistical models, software and analytical tools used for efficient financial analysis. While at CISDM, Dulari authored and co-authored several research papers, one of which was published in the Journal of Alternative Investments in the Spring of 2004. Prior to CISDM, she worked for Kotak Mahindra Asset Management Company in Mumbai, India. Her responsibilities included auditing cash flows and summarizing fund movements for fund managers.
Dulari received her M.B.A. from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst and holds L.L.B. and B.S. degrees from the University of Mumbai. Dulari has attained both of the Chartered Financial Analyst and Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst designations. She is also a member of the Boston Security Analysts Society.
Matt Babiash
Fiducient Advisors
Matt Babiash
Fiducient Advisors
As a member of Fiducent Advisors Marketable Alternatives team, Matt researches and performs due diligence on marketable alternative managers. He is also a member of the firm’s Legal, Risk and Compliance Committee. Matt joined Fiducient in 2017 and was the Operational Risk Analyst for alternative investments for five years before taking on his current role. Prior to joining the firm Matt worked at RSM US LLP as a Senior Associate in both the Assurance and Risk Advisory Services practices. He received a Master of Science in Accountancy from DePaul University’s Kellstadt Graduate School of Business and a Bachelor of Science in Quantitative Structural Physics from the University of Wisconsin – Green Bay. He also obtained the Financial Risk Manager (FRM) designation certified by the Global Association of Risk Professionals and is a Certified Public Accountant. Matt served as a Captain in the United Sates Army where he was deployed to Afghanistan and awarded the Bronze Star Medal for meritorious service. In his free time, he enjoys reading, playing board games and spending time with his family. Additionally, Matt has completed an Ironman Triathlon®.
Kevin Tlusty
Aksia
Kevin Tlusty
Aksia
Kevin is a Director on the Hedge Funds team at Aksia and has over 11 years of industry experience. He is responsible for sourcing, researching, and evaluating managers and investment opportunities with a focus on long/short credit, structured credit, convertible arbitrage and distressed credit strategies, and works with investors to provide tailored investment solutions.
Prior to joining Aksia in 2018, Kevin worked at Enstar Group where he was a Senior Investment Strategist in the firm’s investment group primarily focusing on asset allocation and manager selection. Prior to his time at Enstar, Kevin worked at Allied World Assurance Company as an Investment Analyst where he was part of a team overseeing external investment managers.
Kevin graduated from Rutgers University with a BS in Finance. He is a CFA charterholder and holds the CAIA designation.
Episode 37: Opportunities in Quant and Global Macro: What is the Future of Systematic Investing? CTAs, AI, and EMN
April 2025 – Global Cap Intro 2025
Tom Finnerty
Franklin Templeton Investment Solutions
Tom Finnerty
Franklin Templeton Investment Solutions
Thomas Finnerty is the Head of Global Macro on the Investment Management (IM) team, overseeing the firm's investments in discretionary and systematic macro strategies.
Mr. Finnerty has been with Franklin Templeton Investment Solutions since November 2009, initially focused on credit, relative value and event driven strategies and subsequently across multiple other hedge fund strategies. He relocated to the firm's London office in 2013 to cover managers in the region across hedge fund strategies and was subsequently named Head of Global Macro in 2019. Mr. Finnerty relocated back to the United States in 2022.
Prior to joining Franklin Templeton Investment Solutions, Mr. Finnerty worked as an investment associate for Chapin Hill Advisors, a private wealth manager, from 2008 to 2009. Before that, he was a middle office trade analyst at BGC Partners, Cantor Fitzgerald's interdealer broker-dealer, until mid-2008.
Mr. Finnerty received a Master of Arts degree in Economics from Fordham University's Graduate School of Arts and Sciences and graduated cum laude from Fordham University with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics.
Elina Ploskin
LGT Capital Partners
Elina Ploskin
LGT Capital Partners
Elina Ploskin is an Associate Director at LGT Capital in New York, NY. She is responsible for conducting due diligence and monitoring systematic hedge funds within the Liquid Alternatives group. Prior to joining the firm in 2023, Ms. Ploskin served as a Vice President at Forester Capital. Before that, she held roles as a Director at Columbia Threadneedle, a Vice President at Credit Suisse, and Vice President at Cliffwater. Ms. Ploskin began her career in 2007 as an investment banking analyst at Fox-Pitt Kelton. Ms. Ploskin graduated with a BSc in Finance from Rutgers University and received an MBA from New York University.
Alexander Mende
RPM Risk & Portfolio Management AB
Cedric Fan
Russell Investments
Cedric Fan
Russell Investments
Based in New York, Cedric Fan is the lead portfolio manager for Russell Investments’ hedge fund team. In this role, Cedric directly manages or oversees all multi-strategy and single-strategy hedge fund portfolios. Cedric also oversees the global hedge fund research team, which is composed of analysts in New York, Seattle, and London. The research team establishes and maintains ranks on all hedge fund products that are used in portfolios.
Prior to joining Russell Investments in 2004, Cedric worked at Bear Stearns in its risk management group. When he left Bear, he was serving as its first dedicated fixed income prime brokerage risk manager. Cedric began his career at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
B.S. (with distinction), Economics, University of Wisconsin-Madison M.A., Economics, New York University.
Episode 36: Private Investments
March 2025 – Global Cap Intro 2025
Alison Trusty
Aon
Alison Trusty
Aon
Alison Trusty is an Associate Partner within the global investment management team, with 18 years investment experience. At Aon Alison’s research focus is on alternative credit, with expertise across both liquid and private debt markets. She has led the firm’s research efforts in strategies such as direct lending, distressed debt, regulatory capital relief and litigation finance. Alison is also a member of Aon’s global private credit investment committee.
Craig Bergstrom
Corbin Capital
Craig Bergstrom
Corbin Capital
Craig leads investment research and portfolio management and has responsibility for investment process and results across Corbin. He also has direct investment research responsibilities for Corbin's investments in credit and relative value strategies, including portfolio management for our credit opportunity program, direct and co-investments and our hedge overlay program. Craig is a member of the Investment Committee, the Private Investment Committee, the Valuation Committee and the Hedging and Allocation Committee. Prior to joining Corbin in January 2002, Craig was the Risk Manager at Grantham Mayo Van Otterloo & Co. LLC, a then $20+ billion institutional investment management firm, where he had responsibilities for firm wide market risk management, hedge fund product development and derivatives strategy. Prior to joining GMO, he was a Vice President in the Equity Derivatives group at Salomon Smith Barney, and previously worked in the Equity Structured Products group at Morgan Stanley. Craig graduated from Dartmouth College with a B.A. in Government, and he was awarded the CFA charter in 1997.
Alifia Doriwala
RockCreek Group
Alifia Doriwala
RockCreek Group
Alifia Doriwala is a Partner and Co-Chief Investment Officer at RockCreek focused on OCIO solutions. As a member of the Investment Committee, she is involved in portfolio management, asset allocation and investment decisions across alternative and traditional asset classes. An active investor, she sources directs, and manages relationships with top-quartile public and private investments on behalf of endowments, foundations, and pension funds. Ms. Doriwala works closely with the Investment Committee and Boards of Institutions in managing their investment portfolios and with many as their Outsourced Chief Investment Officer. Building on a life-long interest in advancing mission-oriented work, Ms. Doriwala integrates impact opportunities in certain portfolios.
Prior to joining RockCreek, Ms. Doriwala was an Equity Arbitrage Trader at Wolverine Trading, L.P., where she was responsible for sourcing, analyzing and modeling equity linked trades together with equity options. Ms. Doriwala started her career as an Investment Banking Analyst at Merrill Lynch and member of the Financial Sponsor Group assessing the suitability of potential targets for private equity portfolio companies.
Ms. Doriwala graduated from Georgetown University magna cum laude with a B.A. in Economics and English and holds an M.B.A. in Finance and Marketing from New York University’s Stern School of Business. She is a board member of the Georgetown University Global Business Initiative Advisory Board and a former Trustee and Chair of the Investment Committee at The Langley School. She is also a board member for the Teach for America-DC Region, board member and investment committee member of Maret School and WETA as well as a member of the Global Advisory Council for Beyond the Billion. She supports various non-profit organizations focused on education and women’s initiatives. Ms. Doriwala contributed to the RockCreek IFC research study entitled “Moving Toward Gender Balance in Private Equity.”
Brian Clark
The Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation
Brian Clark
The Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation
Brian Clark is a Managing Director at The Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation. He is an integral member of a nine-person investment team overseeing approximately $3.2 billion in assets. His primary responsibilities include sourcing, evaluating, executing, and monitoring investments across public equity, private equity, venture capital, hedge funds, and private credit. In addition, he works closely with the Chief Investment Officer on asset allocation decisions and risk management. Prior to joining the Foundation, he worked for the University of Cincinnati's investment office and a multi-billion dollar family office. Brian received a Bachelor of Science in Finance from the Farmer School of Business at Miami University. He is a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) charterholder.
Ram Lee
Seven Bridges Advisors
Ram Lee
Seven Bridges Advisors
Ram Lee joined Seven Bridges in 2013 to help lead the firm and investment team. Prior to Seven Bridges, he served as Managing Director at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute endowment. In his role at HHMI, Ram invested its $15+ billion endowment across all asset categories: equities, credit, hedge fund strategies, real estate and private equity funds, including an extensive co-investment program. In addition to sourcing and vetting managers, Ram was the Portfolio Manager for internal macro tail risk strategies and an internal long-only equity strategy. He initiated, traded, and managed positions in equities, currencies, credit default swaps and other credit-related securities. Ram also served as the macro strategist for the HHMI Investment Committee.
Previously, Ram was Director of Investments at the University of Pennsylvania Investment Office. In 2004, he was tapped to join the UPenn CIO to manage the HHMI endowment. Prior to business school, Ram worked for non-profits and NGOs with field work in Cambodia, Vietnam, the Philippines, and Peru.
Ram Lee earned a B.A. in the Honors Program at Swarthmore College and an M.B.A. in Finance from Yale University. He served on the Investment Committee for the NFL Players Association from 2012 to 2024.
2025 Panels will be posted closer to the event. Below are links to watch replays from our 11 complimentary 2024 panels
Episode 35: Canadian Pensions – Getting past the Maple Model or simply evolving to match the environment?
June 2024 – Global Cap Intro 2024
James Burron
Canadian Association of Alternative Strategies & Assets
James Burron
Canadian Association of Alternative Strategies & Assets
James co-founded CAASA in response to industry support for a Canadian alternatives association to serve all aspects including: hedge / alternative strategies; liquid alternatives; private lending; private real estate; private equity; plus emerging areas where Canada is a leader such as digital assets / blockchain and robo-advisors.
Prior to CAASA, James was the Chief Operating Officer of AIMA Canada where his team of three worked with 12 committees to produce 50-60 events per annum across Canada, organized 100+ committee meetings, and increase member numbers over his 7-year tenue from 66 to 164 corporate entities.
James currently sits on the Canadian Investment Funds Standards Committee (CIFSC), which categorizes mutual funds and alternative mutual funds (aka liquid alternatives) for the retail space in Canada. He is also called upon by membership and industry groups to speak to risk ratings and portfolio placement of all types of alternative investments.
James also has experience in research and writing for the CAIA Association (holding the designation since 2006) as well as serving on CAIA’s exam council and as a well as other duties. He had roles in institutional sales and FoHF structuring in Seoul, South Korea, as a Product Manager at ICICI Wealth Management, and as an Investment Advisor at RBC Dominion Securities. James graduated from Simon Fraser University with a BBA (Finance).
Andy Greene
Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) Pension Plan
Andy Greene
Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) Pension Plan
Andy has been in the investment industry for over 25 years in both Canada and the U.S. in a variety of roles. He currently serves as the Chief Investment Officer for the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) Pension Plan, an $8+ bln fully funded defined benefit plan. He joined the organization in 2017 as its first dedicated investment professional. In his role, Andy oversees all investment functions, including investment strategy, portfolio construction, due diligence, risk management, and monitoring and managing the investment team of 9.
Before TTCPP, he worked at OPTrust, Northern Trust, the University of Wisconsin Foundation, and WTW. He holds an M.A. in Applied Economics from Binghamton University and a B.A. in Economics from Ithaca College, the Certified Investment Manager (CIM) and Chartered Alternatives Analyst (CAIA) designations, and is a member of the CFA Institute, CFA Society of Toronto, and the Pension Investment Association of Canada. Andy serves as the Chairperson for the Investment Committees for the United Church of Canada Pension (where he is Chairperson) and York University.
Blair Richards
Port of Halifax ILA/HEA
Blair Richards
Port of Halifax ILA/HEA
Blair Richards has served the Halifax Port International Longshoremen’s Association /Halifax Employers Association since 1984. Currently the Chief Investment Officer, his tenure included seven years as Board Chair and twenty years as Chief Executive Officer. He is also a Director for the Workers Compensation Board of Nova Scotia and Chair of their Investment Committee.
Over his long career Mr. Richards has enjoyed appointments/elections to Boards, councils, committees, and special projects touching the public, private, and not-for-profit sectors. He is a frequent presenter and volunteer member of numerous industry groups. He holds a BA (DAL’91) and an MBA (SMU’97) and multiple certifications, the most prominent being an eighteen-year Fellowship with the International Society of Certified Employee Benefit Specialists.
Mr. Richards is an avid and enthusiastic life-long learner. He practices kaizen these days, which involves a concerted effort by him at reverse mentorship.
Episode 34: Which Hedge Fund Strategies Protect Capital During a Market Sell Off?
June 2024 – Global Cap Intro 2024
Robert Rafter
Morgan Stanley Investment Management
Robert Rafter
Morgan Stanley Investment Management
Rob is a portfolio manager and head of research on the AIP Hedge Fund team within Morgan Stanley Investment Management, responsible for overseeing the investment process and team across hedge fund strategies. He is also a member of the Investment Committee. Rob joined Morgan Stanley AIP in 2011 and has 19 years of professional experience. Prior to joining the firm, he served as vice president responsible for hedge fund investments at Colchis Capital Management, a boutique alternative investment manager. Previously, Rob was a segment producer at CNBC Business News and an analyst at Lehman Brothers, where he worked on the central funding desk within the Fixed Income Division. Rob received a B.A. in government from Georgetown University. He is a member of the Bond Club of Philadelphia and the CFA Society of Philadelphia. Rob holds the Chartered Financial Analyst designation.
George Evans, CFA
Aksia
George Evans, CFA
Aksia
George is a Managing Director on the Investment Research team and has over 15 years of experience in alternative investments. He is responsible for sourcing, conducting investment research, and evaluating managers across relative value strategies.
Prior to joining Aksia in 2019, George was a Strategy Head focusing on global macro & trading strategies at UBP Asset Management where he was responsible for sourcing and due diligence across discretionary global macro, fixed income arbitrage and commodity strategies. Before that, George worked as a research analyst at Ermitage UK Ltd. where he focused mostly on long/short equity strategies in Europe.
George graduated from Bayes Business School, City, University of London with a BS in Banking and International Finance. He is a CFA charterholder.
Paul Kreiselmaier
Verus Investments
Paul Kreiselmaier
Verus Investments
Mr. Kreiselmaier has over 20 years of investment experience in various roles in both manager due diligence and quantitative research and portfolio management. At Verus, he is primarily responsible for investment strategy, due diligence, portfolio construction recommendations and relationship building across the hedge fund universe, and oversight of the firm’s hedge fund program.
Prior to joining Verus, he was a senior research analyst at Russell Investments where he was responsible for evaluating, recommending and monitoring hedge fund managers for inclusion in client portfolios. He began his career at Russell evaluating US large cap equity and Global Tactical Asset Allocation (GTAA) managers. He also worked at Mellon Capital Management where he held both research and portfolio management related roles focused on both equity and GTAA mandates.
Mr. Kreiselmaier graduated from Trinity University with a bachelor of arts (BA) degree in economics. He also holds a master's degree in business administration (MBA) from the University of Texas at Austin. He is a CFA charterholder (Chartered Financial Analyst) and a member of both the CFA Institute and the CFA Society of Seattle. Mr. Kreiselmaier is also a member of the Chicago Quantitative Alliance (CQA).
Scott Radke
New Holland Capital
Scott Radke
New Holland Capital
Scott Radke is the Chief Executive Officer and Co-Chief Investment Officer at New Holland Capital (NHC). As CEO, Scott is responsible for leading, implementing, and growing NHC’s business activities. As Co-CIO, Scott is responsible for portfolio management, investment research, and portfolio risk alongside Bill Young with a special focus on liquid strategies. Scott is a member of the firm’s Financial Risk Management Committee and a member of the Investment Committee, which opines on investment and portfolio decisions across NHC’s business lines. Prior to the launch of NHC in 2006, Scott was a member of the Hedge Fund Group within a Dutch pension. Before that, Scott was a Vice President at Citigroup Global Markets and previously an Associate within the Insurance-related Structured Transactions Group at Goldman Sachs. Scott graduated magna cum laude from the University of Michigan with a BSE in Mechanical Engineering and received an MBA in Finance with distinction from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.
Episode 33: Which Hedge Fund Strategies Look the Most Attractive Over the Next 24 Months?
June 2024 – Global Cap Intro 2024
Alifia Doriwala
RockCreek Group
Alifia Doriwala
RockCreek Group
Alifia Doriwala is a Partner and Co-Chief Investment Officer at RockCreek focused on OCIO solutions. As a member of the Investment Committee, she is involved in portfolio management, asset allocation and investment decisions across alternative and traditional asset classes. An active investor, she sources directs, and manages relationships with top-quartile public and private investments on behalf of endowments, foundations, and pension funds. Ms. Doriwala works closely with the Investment Committee and Boards of Institutions in managing their investment portfolios and with many as their Outsourced Chief Investment Officer. Building on a life-long interest in advancing mission-oriented work, Ms. Doriwala integrates impact opportunities in certain portfolios.
Prior to joining RockCreek, Ms. Doriwala was an Equity Arbitrage Trader at Wolverine Trading, L.P., where she was responsible for sourcing, analyzing and modeling equity linked trades together with equity options. Ms. Doriwala started her career as an Investment Banking Analyst at Merrill Lynch and member of the Financial Sponsor Group assessing the suitability of potential targets for private equity portfolio companies.
Ms. Doriwala graduated from Georgetown University magna cum laude with a B.A. in Economics and English and holds an M.B.A. in Finance and Marketing from New York University’s Stern School of Business. She is a board member of the Georgetown University Global Business Initiative Advisory Board and a former Trustee and Chair of the Investment Committee at The Langley School. She is also a board member for the Teach for America-DC Region, board member and investment committee member of Maret School and WETA as well as a member of the Global Advisory Council for Beyond the Billion. She supports various non-profit organizations focused on education and women’s initiatives. Ms. Doriwala contributed to the RockCreek IFC research study entitled “Moving Toward Gender Balance in Private Equity.”
Victoria Vodolazschi
WTW
Victoria Vodolazschi joined Towers Watson in August 2015 as a senior member of the Liquid Diversifiers and Equity Research teams. She also acts as a portfolio manager in our U.S. Delegated Portfolio Management Group and serves as a member of Macro and Hedge Fund Investment Committees. Prior to joining WTW, she spent eight years in the Northern Trust Alternatives group as a co-Portfolio Manager of the fund of funds products as well as bespoke wealth management mandates. Prior to Northern Trust, she had hedge fund due diligence and portfolio management responsibilities at Bainbridge Partners, LLC. She started her career as an Investment Banking Analyst in the Financial Institutions Group at Bear Stearns and also worked in the Mergers & Acquisitions Group at JP Morgan. Victoria received her BA in Economics and International Relations from Trinity College and her MBA from the Stern School of Business at New York University.
Robert Kiernan
Advanced Portfolio Management
Episode 32: The Rise of Asian Family Offices and their Quest for Alpha
June 2024 – Global Cap Intro 2024
Chauwei Yak
Gao Capital
Chauwei Yak
Gao Capital
Chauwei Yak is the Founder and CEO of GAO Capital, a hedge fund management company based in Singapore. Chauwei has been implementing artificial intelligence and machine learning techniques in the funds’ research and risk management processes. GAO Capital continues to enhance its technological capabilities with the artificial intelligence and data analytics (AIDA) grant awarded by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS).
Chauwei started her career as an investment banker with UBS and JPMorgan, working in their offices in London, Tokyo and New York. She then became the director of research at Ortelius Capital where she headed the selection and due diligence of hedge funds, and oversaw the firm’s research and portfolio management systems.
Chauwei is a Chartered Valuer and Appraiser (CVA) and a Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst (CAIA). She graduated summa cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania, with a Bachelor of Science in economics from The Wharton School, and a Bachelor of Arts in Asian and Middle Eastern studies with a minor in mathematics from the College of Arts and Sciences.
Episode 31: What Asia Based Alternative Investment Strategies Look the Most Attractive?
June 2024 – Global Cap Intro 2024
Vincent Au
ALPS Advisory
Vincent Au
ALPS Advisory
Vincent joined ALPS Advisory in 2018 as Managing Director and is the Head of Investments. His main focuses are designing and developing investment strategies and solutions, selecting external managers and actively managing the ALPS Fund. Prior to joining ALPS, Vincent was a senior portfolio manager at Asia Capital Re in Singapore, where he was responsible for managing the reinsurer’s multi-asset investments. Before joining Asia Capital Re, Vincent worked in the United Kingdom, as an alternative investment portfolio manager at Aerion, a multi-asset portfolio manager at MMC UK pension fund and a global bond fund manager at British Airways Pension. He holds a Master’s degree in International Trade and Finance from Lancaster University, UK and is a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA).
Takahito Kimura
Mitsubishi UFJ Trust and Banking
Ken Shimasaki
Mitsui Alternative Investments
Ken Shimasaki
Mitsui Alternative Investments
Mr. Shimasaki joined MAI in 2013 and is a portfolio manager in the Investment Management Department. He is responsible for sourcing, due diligence and monitoring hedge funds and credit-oriented funds. Prior to joining the Firm, he had nine years of experience in managing fund of funds at an investment manager. Previously, he worked for 12 years on investment management teams at a life insurance firm.
Leow Li-Vern
Seviora Capital
Leow Li-Vern
Seviora Capital
Leow Li-Vern is the Director of Investments at Seviora Capital, and is responsible for overseeing Seviora’s investment strategy, and its fund and direct co-investments activities. Prior to joining Seviora, Li-Vern spent over 11 years at Temasek, and her last role was as a Director in the Portfolio Strategy and Risk group, where she played a key role in the portfolio construction and tactical investment activities, across single stocks , equity indices, fixed income and commodities. From 2010 – 2016, she was part of Temasek’s Investment Group, executing and managing investments in the transport and logistics sector.
Prior to Temasek, Li-Vern spent 6 years with GE Capital and CIMB Investment Bank, focusing on growth equity / minority investments in Southeast Asia.
Li-Vern holds a Bachelor of Commerce (Hons) from the University of Western Australia. She is a CFA charterholder.
Episode 30: Private Markets
June 2024 – Global Cap Intro 2024
Ohm Srinivasan
CIBC Private Wealth Group
Ohm Srinivasan
CIBC Private Wealth Group
Ohm Srinivasan is the Head of Manager Research & Alternative Investments based in Boston. With more than 20 years of investment management experience, he is responsible for the Multi-Manager Investment Program (MMIP) across hedge funds, private equity, and mutual funds. He is primarily focused on managing custom hedge fund portfolios (CAPS) and an internal multi-strategy hedge fund of fund for our clients.
Prior to joining the firm in 2008, Ohm was vice president of investments for Battersby Capital Management, where he was co-head of hedge fund research and a derivatives portfolio manager. His responsibilities included manager research, portfolio construction, risk management, and hedge fund of funds development. He was also the portfolio manager of the systemic hedge book trading equity options and credit swaptions to complement the portfolio of hedge funds.
Ohm began his career as a senior trader at Cornerstone Trading for six years, where he managed multiple proprietary portfolios employing event-driven, volatility arbitrage, options market-making, and quantitative equity market-neutral hedge fund strategies.
He earned a Bachelor of Science with a concentration in economics from the University of Michigan and holds the Chartered Financial Analyst designation.
Brian Clark
The Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation
Brian Clark
The Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation
Brian Clark is a Managing Director at The Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation. He is an integral member of a nine-person investment team overseeing approximately $3.2 billion in assets. His primary responsibilities include sourcing, evaluating, executing, and monitoring investments across public equity, private equity, venture capital, hedge funds, and private credit. In addition, he works closely with the Chief Investment Officer on asset allocation decisions and risk management. Prior to joining the Foundation, he worked for the University of Cincinnati's investment office and a multi-billion dollar family office. Brian received a Bachelor of Science in Finance from the Farmer School of Business at Miami University. He is a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) charterholder.
Frank Rosenberg
Rosemore
Frank Rosenberg
Rosemore
Mr. Rosenberg is Lead Manager of the Board and Chief Investment Officer of Rosemore Capital Strategies, an investment focused company on behalf of single family. Rosemore Capital Strategies is a newly created Company with similar focus to Rosemore, Inc., at which Frank held similar positions: Co-Chair of the Board since 2020 and CIO since 2011. Frank is also Chairman of the Board of Attransco, which historically operated U.S.-flagged mixed-use oil tankers and became minority owners of a Danish shipping company focused on bulk carriage. Prior to joining Rosemore, Mr. Rosenberg had a breadth of assignments with Crown Central Petroleum Corporation at the refinery, in the trading operation, the wholesale and retail marketing departments, with the last job being as President & CEO. Mr. Rosenberg began his career with General Electric Credit Corporation (currently, GE Capital) in the marketing and then credit departments. He received an MBA from Emory University and a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from Bucknell University. Mr. Rosenberg serves on several Boards and Investment Committees in the Baltimore area including Lifebridge Health, Gilman School and a few others.
Alison Trusty
Aon
Alison Trusty
Aon
Alison Trusty is an Associate Partner within the global investment management team, with 18 years investment experience. At Aon Alison’s research focus is on alternative credit, with expertise across both liquid and private debt markets. She has led the firm’s research efforts in strategies such as direct lending, distressed debt, regulatory capital relief and litigation finance. Alison is also a member of Aon’s global private credit investment committee.
Episode 27: Opportunities in Fixed Income Oriented Alternative Investment Strategies
May 2024 – Global Cap Intro 2024
Kevin Lyons
abrdn
Kevin Lyons
abrdn
Kevin Lyons is a Senior Investment Manager on the Hedge Funds Solutions Team and head of credit and fixed income strategies. Kevin joined Aberdeen in 2012 from Attalus Capital where he was a senior analyst covering relative value strategies. Prior to Attalus, Kevin worked for Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs within their Prime Brokerage groups. Kevin graduated with a BSc in Finance from University of Scranton and an MBA with a concentration in Finance from Fordham University.
Olivier Kintgen
Banque Edmond De Rothschild
Olivier Kintgen
Banque Edmond De Rothschild
Olivier Kintgen, is the Head of Hedge fund portfolios at Banque Edmond de Rothschild in Geneva since August 2019. He has 34 years investment experience with last 20 years in Asset Management as a Portfolio Manager, managing Open ended funds, Fund of one and Advisory solutions. The range of expertise is cross assets with an edge in fixed Income Assets, complex derivatives products, and Risk Management. Olivier started his career at Bank of America in 1991 and held various assignments including Managing Director in charge with G7 Arbitrage & proprietary trading and Head of Sales Trading for European Emerging Markets.He spent 20y as Head of Research and CIO at ERAAM where he managed mandates for a wide range of Clients including large Pension Funds and Endowments. Olivier holds an MBA from ESSEC and BA from Paris IX Dauphine.
Joe Tolen
Cambridge Associates
Joe Tolen
Cambridge Associates
Joe Tolen is a Senior Investment Director of Credit Strategies based at the London offices of Cambridge Associates.
Prior to joining Cambridge Associates in 2023, Joe was Director of Multi-Asset Strategies for the Indiana Public Retirement System (“INPRS”) for four years. In his role Joe was responsible for the formulation and implementation of the Absolute Return and Risk Parity portfolios (~$11.5bn of Defined Benefit assets). Within Absolute Return, Joe focused on allocations to Insurance Linked, Fixed Income Relative Value, Global Macro, Event Driven, Structured Credit, CTA, Multi-Strategy, Co-Investments, and Fund of Fund strategies. The Risk Parity portfolio was made up of direct manager allocations as well as an internal custom index. Before his role at INPRS, Joe worked on the Equity Derivatives Sales Trading desk for Morgan Stanley in London. In this role, Joe served as sales coverage for North American-based clients trading European options, futures, swaps, and exotics.
Joe holds a Bachelor of Science in Finance and Entrepreneurship from Indiana University and is a CAIA Charterholder.
Dulari Pancholi
NEPC
Dulari Pancholi
NEPC
Dulari’s investment career began in 2000 and she joined NEPC in 2006. Dulari leads NEPC’s hedge fund research and due diligence activities, in addition to providing consulting services for the non-traditional asset classes of NEPC’s various clients. Dulari is the Co-Head of NEPC’s Credit Beta Group which consolidates fixed income research efforts across all asset classes. She is also the Co-Head of NEPC’s Impact Investing Committee. Dulari is also frequent speaker at industry conferences on the topics of fixed income and Impact Investing.
Prior to joining NEPC in August of 2006, Dulari was Vice President of Operations of the Hedge Fund at Venus Capital Management. As Vice President, Dulari was independently responsible for all of the investment operations activity for two funds under management. Prior to that, Dulari was employed as a Research Associate at the Center for International Securities and Derivatives Market (CISDM). As a Research Associate, Dulari's responsibilities included understanding various databases, statistical models, software and analytical tools used for efficient financial analysis. While at CISDM, Dulari authored and co-authored several research papers, one of which was published in the Journal of Alternative Investments in the Spring of 2004. Prior to CISDM, she worked for Kotak Mahindra Asset Management Company in Mumbai, India. Her responsibilities included auditing cash flows and summarizing fund movements for fund managers.
Dulari received her M.B.A. from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst and holds L.L.B. and B.S. degrees from the University of Mumbai. Dulari has attained both of the Chartered Financial Analyst and Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst designations. She is also a member of the Boston Security Analysts Society.
Episode 28: Where Are the Opportunities in Long/Short Equity & What Makes a Good Manager?
June 2024 – Global Cap Intro 2024
Julie Lauer Wurster
Albourne America
Julie Lauer Wurster
Albourne America
Julie Lauer Wurster is a Partner and Senior Analyst at Albourne America. Julie joined Albourne in 2007 and is responsible for the global long short equity strategy. Prior to joining Albourne, Julie was an analyst in the Absolute Return Strategy Group at General Motors Asset Management from 2003 to 2007. In this role Julie focused her time on the long/short equity managers. Julie also has related experience with Ford Motor Company and consulting experience with Deloitte & Touche. Julie earned a Master of Business Administration from Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business in 2003 and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Economics from Duke University in 1998.
Craig Bergstrom
Corbin Capital
Craig Bergstrom
Corbin Capital
Craig leads investment research and portfolio management and has responsibility for investment process and results across Corbin. He also has direct investment research responsibilities for Corbin's investments in credit and relative value strategies, including portfolio management for our credit opportunity program, direct and co-investments and our hedge overlay program. Craig is a member of the Investment Committee, the Private Investment Committee, the Valuation Committee and the Hedging and Allocation Committee. Prior to joining Corbin in January 2002, Craig was the Risk Manager at Grantham Mayo Van Otterloo & Co. LLC, a then $20+ billion institutional investment management firm, where he had responsibilities for firm wide market risk management, hedge fund product development and derivatives strategy. Prior to joining GMO, he was a Vice President in the Equity Derivatives group at Salomon Smith Barney, and previously worked in the Equity Structured Products group at Morgan Stanley. Craig graduated from Dartmouth College with a B.A. in Government, and he was awarded the CFA charter in 1997.
Tim Berry
Lighthouse Group
Tim Berry
Lighthouse Group
Timothy Berry, CFA, Managing Director, Chair of the Equity Committee
Tim identifies investment strategy opportunities as well as analyzes and monitors portfolio construction and asset allocation. Tim is the head of the Lighthouse Global Equity Strategy Team, as well as a member of the Management Committee, the Investment Research Committee (IRC), and the Opportunistic Relative Value Strategy Team. Previously, Tim ran the hedge fund investment team at Private Advisors LLC, an institutional alternative investment manager where he invested in hedge fund managers across a broad variety of strategies for 14 years. He was a member of the hedge fund investment committees and the firm’s executive committee. Tim started his investment career at Chesapeake Capital Corporation, a commodity trader, where he analyzed fund performance and performed due diligence on alternative investments on behalf of the principals of the firm. Tim earned a master’s degree from Duke University and graduated with distinction with a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Virginia. He is a CFA charterholder and a member of the CFA Society of Virginia. Tim is also the chair of the Virginia 529 Investment Advisory Committee.
Sam Kavehrad
RVK
Sam Kavehrad
RVK
Sam is a senior member of the Investment Manager Research group working closely with institutional clients on hedge fund manager selection, portfolio construction, risk management practices, and structuring limited partnership terms. He currently sits on the firm’s ESG Practices and Alternatives Investment committees.
Previously, Sam served as a Research Analyst for a large asset management firm, where he focused on the sourcing, due diligence, and analysis of hedge fund strategies.
Sam graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in Finance from Portland State University and is a CAIA Charterholder.
Episode 29: Use of Alternative Investment Strategies to Enhance the Risk Adjusted Returns of a Pension Fund Portfolio
June 2024 – Global Cap Intro 2024
Robert Butler
Arizona State Retirement System
Robert Butler
Arizona State Retirement System
Mr. Butler, is the Investment Risk & Compliance Officer for the Arizona State Retirement System where he has worked since 2021. He is a tenured Investment professional with a focus on alternative investments and risk management including cyber security, compliance and geopolitics. Mr. Butler earned a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration from the University of Arizona with a double major in Finance and Accounting. Earned the CFA designation in 2004 and the PRM certification in 2012. Also hold the CFM & CMA designations from the Institute of Management Accountants. Previously served on the board of the CFA Society of DFW, the Dallas Area Young Bankruptcy Lawyers, Turnaround Management Association Central Texas Chapter, and University of Arizona Alumni Chapters in Austin, Houston & DFW.
Katherine Molnar
Fairfax County Police Officers Retirement System
Katherine Molnar
Fairfax County Police Officers Retirement System
Ms. Molnar joined Fairfax County Retirement Systems in 2013 as a Senior Investment Officer responsible for managing the Fairfax County Police Officers Retirement System, a $1.3 billion plan. Her responsibilities include all aspects of portfolio management and oversight, including strategic and tactical asset and risk allocation, selection and supervision of external investment managers and risk management. From 2001 until 2012, Ms. Molnar was Vice President, Senior Research Analyst at AIG Investments’ Hedge Fund Solutions Group – both in London and New York. At AIG Investments, Ms. Molnar was responsible for due diligence procedures and research including: sourcing new managers, monitoring current hedge funds, analyzing portfolio risk and performance, making new investment recommendations to an investment committee as well as hedge fund asset allocation recommendations for portfolio construction. She was additionally responsible for portfolio reviews and overall asset allocation recommendations for external client portfolios. Previously, she was Vice President, Market Research Analyst at Citigroup Investments’ Alternative Investment Strategies group. Prior investment management experience includes positions at Paribas Asset Management as well as Trevor Stewart Burton & Jacobsen. Additionally, Ms. Molnar spent one year in Warsaw, Poland launching the first retail mutual funds available to the Polish market as well as two years in Frankfurt, Germany as an intern with J.P. Morgan. Ms. Molnar received a B.S. in Business Administration/Finance from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She is a CFA charterholder.
Zack Driscoll
Meketa Investment Group
Zack Driscoll
Meketa Investment Group
Zack Driscoll, CFA, serves as a research consultant specializing in marketable alternatives (hedge funds). Zack is a member of Meketa’s Corporate Responsibility Committee, Emerging and Diverse Manager Committee, and Marketable Securities Oversight Committee. Prior to joining Meketa in 2018, Zack was a Client Service Senior Associate at State Street Global Services. He is a CFA Charterholder and received a Bachelor of Business Administration from Villanova University.
Mohamed Farid
World Bank
Mohamed Farid
World Bank
Mohamed Farid is a Principal Portfolio Manager / Head of Absolute Return Strategies at the World Bank Pension Fund, managing over $4 billion of Absolute Return Strategies portfolio. Mohamed has over 23 years of experience investing directly in hedge funds and is an active member of Investment Committee at the Pension Plan portfolio. Mohamed has opportunistically co-invested with some hedge fund managers and implemented internal hedging strategies.
Prior to joining the World Bank Pension Plan, Mohamed worked for Deloitte & Touche and KPMG financial consulting groups in Toronto, Canada, Washington D.C, Egypt and Thailand where he led acquisitions and bankruptcy engagements for leading clients in North America and Asia. Mohamed started his career in commercial banking. He holds a master’s degree from the Johns Hopkins University in International Economics and Political Science as well as a Master’s degree in Banking and Finance from Finafrica Foundation in Milan, Italy.
Panayiotis Lambropoulos
Employees Retirement System of Texas
Panayiotis Lambropoulos
Employees Retirement System of Texas
Panayiotis Lambropoulos CFA, CAIA, FRM is a Portfolio Manager at the Employees Retirement System of Texas – a $38 billion retirement plan – located in Austin, Texas. His responsibilities include sourcing, analyzing and evaluating potential third party managers deploying all types of alternative investment strategies. His primary focus is on the Trust’s Absolute Return Portfolio along with opportunistic investments in Emerging Managers. Panayiotis holds a B.S in Business Administration with a concentration in Finance and Marketing from Boston College, and an M.B.A in General Management from Northwestern University. Panayiotis is also a CFA, CAIA and FRM Charterholder.
Episode 26: Opportunities in Quant, CTAs and Global Macro: What is the Future of Systematic Investing?
May 2024 – Global Cap Intro 2024
Cedric Fan
Russell Investments
Cedric Fan
Russell Investments
Based in New York, Cedric Fan is the lead portfolio manager for Russell Investments’ hedge fund team. In this role, Cedric directly manages or oversees all multi-strategy and single-strategy hedge fund portfolios. Cedric also oversees the global hedge fund research team, which is composed of analysts in New York, Seattle, and London. The research team establishes and maintains ranks on all hedge fund products that are used in portfolios.
Prior to joining Russell Investments in 2004, Cedric worked at Bear Stearns in its risk management group. When he left Bear, he was serving as its first dedicated fixed income prime brokerage risk manager. Cedric began his career at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
B.S. (with distinction), Economics, University of Wisconsin-Madison M.A., Economics, New York University.
Samuel Weissen
LGT Capital Partners
Samuel Weissen
LGT Capital Partners
Samuel Weissen (Swiss) is an Executive Director on the Liquid Markets Multi-Manager team at LGT Capital Partners in New York. Mr. Weissen is responsible for manager selection with a focus on quantitative strategies. Furthermore, he is part of the portfolio management team for multi-alternatives portfolios.
Before joining the firm in 2017, Mr. Weissen was a senior associate at StepStone Group in Zurich, focusing on multi-alternatives solutions and research into alternative beta strategies. Before that, he was part of Vontobel’s Investment Banking division in Zurich and worked as an accountant for Bank Sarasin in Basel, after graduating from its apprenticeship program in 2011.
Mr. Weissen studied at the University of Applied Sciences in Zurich where he received a BSc in Business Administration with a major in Banking and Finance and graduated with distinction from London Business School’s MSc in Finance program. He holds the CFA, FRM and CAIA designations.
Penny Aitken
Mercer
Penny Aitken
Mercer
Penny is European Head of Hedge Funds Research at Mercer. Based in London, she leads a team covering a wide range of hedge fund and other diversifying strategies in Europe. She works across a breadth of client types and portfolios in providing investment solutions and helps lead development of intellectual capital within the global team. Penny has over 26 years of experience within the investment industry with over 20 of these focussed on hedge fund investing covering all strategies and geographies. She joined Mercer in 2017.
Penny’s career has included leading global alternative research teams (at IAM) through to building and developing a quantitative, alternatives, investment business at FQS Capital. She has also spent time in primary hedge funds, both on the investment and business sides, and has served as a Non-Executive Director for funds. She started out her investment career at Cazenove Fund Management in the Emerging Market Equities portfolio team, having initially qualified as an accountant with Deloittes.
Penny has a Master of Arts (MA) from Christ Church, Oxford and holds an (ACA), (IMC) and is a Chartered Manager, at the Certified Management Institute (‘CMI’).
Alexander Mende
RPM Risk & Portfolio Management AB
Tom Finnerty
Franklin Templeton Investment Solutions
Tom Finnerty
Franklin Templeton Investment Solutions
Thomas Finnerty is the Head of Global Macro on the Investment Management (IM) team, overseeing the firm's investments in discretionary and systematic macro strategies.
Mr. Finnerty has been with Franklin Templeton Investment Solutions since November 2009, initially focused on credit, relative value and event driven strategies and subsequently across multiple other hedge fund strategies. He relocated to the firm's London office in 2013 to cover managers in the region across hedge fund strategies and was subsequently named Head of Global Macro in 2019. Mr. Finnerty relocated back to the United States in 2022.
Prior to joining Franklin Templeton Investment Solutions, Mr. Finnerty worked as an investment associate for Chapin Hill Advisors, a private wealth manager, from 2008 to 2009. Before that, he was a middle office trade analyst at BGC Partners, Cantor Fitzgerald's interdealer broker-dealer, until mid-2008.
Mr. Finnerty received a Master of Arts degree in Economics from Fordham University's Graduate School of Arts and Sciences and graduated cum laude from Fordham University with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics.
Episode 25: Generating Alpha with Emerging Managers: Opportunities and Approaches
May 2024 – Global Cap Intro 2024
Matthias Knab
Opalesque
Matthias Knab
Opalesque
Matthias Knab is the founder of Opalesque, a publishing and research firm on hedge funds and alternative investments. He has over 30 years experience in finance and a strong network of contacts and relationships across the globe.
With a global team of journalists, analysts, and experts, Opalesque produces newsletters, videos, roundtables, research, webinars and podcasts that reach over 90,000 users in 160 countries, including the respected HORIZONS: Family Office & Investor Magazine.
Matthias is also a Senior Advisor at Castle Hall, a leading global provider of due diligence services, covering more than 2,300 funds and servicing $10 trillion in assets, helping investors worldwide manage the operational, ESG, cyber, and investment risks of asset managers, and a Member of the Executive Council at Mintus, the first UK regulated investment platform democratising access to art as an alternative asset through fractionalisation.
Caroline Gillespie Greer
Commonfund
Caroline Gillespie Greer
Commonfund
Caroline Gillespie Greer is Managing Director, Asset Management and Member of Investment Committee of Commonfund.
Caroline shares responsibility for portfolio management and analysis, manager identification, due diligence, and investment monitoring.
Prior to joining Commonfund in 2005, Caroline served as a Partner and Principal for Contego Capital Management, LLC, specializing in customized funds of hedge funds. She was responsible for sourcing, evaluating and monitoring hedge fund managers across a full range of strategies.
Prior to joining Contego, Caroline was a Senior Vice President for Oppenheimer and Co. where she co-managed their funds of hedge funds program and monitored Oppenheimer’s private equity fund. Caroline began her career at Montrose Advisors, a boutique financial advisor specializing in managing customized funds of hedge funds and private equity portfolios.
Caroline received a B.A. in Political Science from the University of Toronto, and an M.A. and M.Phil. from Columbia University of New York.
Adam Choppin
Xponance
Adam Choppin
Xponance
Adam Choppin is the Assistant Portfolio Manager for multi-manager strategies at Xponance (fka FIS Group), a $16bn AUM Philadelphia-based asset manager with $6bn in multi-manager strategies. In that role, Adam is responsible for external manager selection and macro-economic strategy. Adam joined Xponance in May 2013.
From 2008-2013, Adam was founder and CEO of a boutique investment advisory firm which advised on private investments in South America, Africa, and the Middle East. Previously, he worked for several U.S. Government agencies as a commercial and economic affairs officer in Afghanistan, Cape Verde, Ghana, Iraq, Mozambique, Sierra Leone, and Washington, DC.
Adam earned his B.A. in International Relations from the University of Southern California (USC); his M.A. in International Economics and Business from Yale University; and a post-graduate Diploma in Finance from the London School of Economics. While a student at USC, Adam also read in Latin American economics and politics at the Universidade de São Paulo. He speaks Portuguese and Spanish and is a CFA Charterholder.
Jamil Batcha
Waycrosse
Jamil Batcha
Waycrosse
Jamil is currently an Investment Director at Waycrosse, a single family office where he sources and diligences global fund and direct investment opportunities across public and private asset classes. Previously he was an Investment Manager at the Brookings Institution Endowment where he originated and evaluated global fund investment opportunities across asset classes. In a prior life, Jamil was a portfolio manager at BFAM Partners, a Hong Kong-based Lehman Brothers/Nomura spin-out multi-strategy hedge fund with peak AUM of $5.5bn. At BFAM Partners, Jamil managed a global portfolio of credit, convertible bonds, equities and derivatives. Jamil began his career as a private markets analyst at Albourne Partners in Hong Kong where he conducted due diligence and advised global institutional investors on their private market fund investments in Asia-Pacific and Japan.
Jamil holds a B.A. in Economics from Dartmouth College. Post-graduation, he spent nearly two years in Beijing studying Mandarin intensively and amongst other things, was an extra in a Hollywood movie.
Jamil speaks Tamil, Mandarin, Italian and French.
Lionel Erdely
Investcorp-Tages
Lionel Erdely
Investcorp-Tages
Prior to joining Investcorp in 2013, Lionel worked for 11 years at Lyxor Asset Management, where he held the dual position of Chief Investment Officer (2004 – 2013) and Chief Executive Officer of Lyxor Inc. (2009 – 2013). Prior to joining Lyxor, he was a Vice President in the Equity Corporate Finance department at Société Générale, where he worked on several IPOs, capital increases and convertible bond issues.
Lionel has an MBA Degree in Finance from the École Supérieure des Sciences Économiques et Commerciales (ESSEC) in Paris.
Episode 24: Distressed Investing: Is this the time? What makes a good manager? Where does it fot in a portfolio?
September 2023
David A. Morehead, CFA
Baylor University
David A. Morehead, CFA
Baylor University
David A. Morehead is the Chief Investment Officer in the Baylor University Office of Investments. He previously was a senior portfolio manager at Lotsoff Capital Management, where he managed securities across the corporate capital structure, and a partner at Highview Capital Management, where he focused on public and private energy investments. Prior to this, he was a portfolio manager at Ritchie Capital Management, responsible for a generalist corporate relative value and distressed portfolio. Prior to this, he was responsible for equity research on the transportation/logistics and specialty retail sectors at William Blair & Company. Mr. Morehead also held roles at Bank of America, where he was responsible for the risk management of the bank’s interest rate derivatives desk, and First Trust Advisors, where he advised community banks on their investment portfolios. Mr. Morehead graduated summa cum laude from Wheaton College and earned his MBA in finance and entrepreneurship with honors from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. Mr. Morehead also holds the Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) designation.
Panayiotis Lambropoulos
Employees Retirement System of Texas
Panayiotis Lambropoulos
Employees Retirement System of Texas
Panayiotis Lambropoulos CFA, CAIA, FRM is a Portfolio Manager at the Employees Retirement System of Texas – a $38 billion retirement plan – located in Austin, Texas. His responsibilities include sourcing, analyzing and evaluating potential third party managers deploying all types of alternative investment strategies. His primary focus is on the Trust’s Absolute Return Portfolio along with opportunistic investments in Emerging Managers. Panayiotis holds a B.S in Business Administration with a concentration in Finance and Marketing from Boston College, and an M.B.A in General Management from Northwestern University. Panayiotis is also a CFA, CAIA and FRM Charterholder.
Jesse Licht, CFA
BlackRock
Jesse Licht, CFA
BlackRock
Jesse Licht, CFA, Managing Director, is a member of the Hedge Fund Solutions (“HFS”) team within Multi-Alternatives (“Multi-Alts”) at BlackRock. The HFS team has been building and managing portfolios of hedge funds since 1995 and is one of the world’s largest allocators to hedge funds. The HFS team invests across the spectrum of hedge fund strategies to deliver strong risk-adjusted returns with low correlation to traditional portfolio investments. Mr. Licht is responsible for sourcing, evaluating, and monitoring hedge fund managers and hedge fund-sponsored co-investments. He is also the Global Head of Credit Strategies and a member of the HFS Co-Investment Portfolio Management Group.
The Multi-Alts team, within BlackRock’s Multi-Asset Strategies & Solutions (“MASS”), designs and manages portfolios across a wide range of liquid and illiquid alternative investments, leveraging BlackRock’s investment capabilities and technology to deliver best in class solutions for clients. The MASS team is the investment group at the heart of BlackRock's portfolio construction, asset allocation, and active management ecosystem. MASS draws on the full toolkit of BlackRock's index, factor, and alpha-seeking investment capabilities to deliver precise investment outcomes and cutting-edge alpha insights. MASS constructs active asset allocation strategies and whole portfolio solutions across a wide spectrum of commingled funds, separate accounts, model portfolios, and outsourcing solutions in the wealth and institutional channels.
Mr. Licht's service with the firm dates back to 2006, including his years at Quellos Group, LLC, from which the alternative investment management business was acquired by BlackRock in 2007. At Quellos, Mr. Licht was an Associate responsible for product strategy, marketing, and client service.
In addition, Mr. Licht serves on the Investment Committee of the Yakima Valley Community Foundation whose mission is to connect people, resources, and ideas to help the community thrive.
He earned a BA degree with a concentration in economics from Pomona College in 2006.
Greg Deeds, CFA
Southern Ute Indian Tribe
Greg Deeds, CFA
Southern Ute Indian Tribe
Greg Deeds is the Director of Investments for the Southern Ute Indian Tribe's Permanent Fund. The Permanent Fund provides in perpetuity for the fiscal needs of the tribal government. Prior to joining the Tribe, Greg served as an advisor to Bindley Capital, Strategy Head of Event-Driven and Macro for EACM Advisors, and portfolio manager for Ritchie Capital. He began his career trading bond options at the Chicago Board of Trade and then as an equity marketmaker for Knight Capital. Greg is a CFA charterholder and received an M.S. in Finance from Indiana University and an A.B. from Dartmouth College.
Episode 23: Benefits of Reinsurance for an Institutional Portfolio
July 2023
George Evans, CFA
Aksia
George Evans, CFA
Aksia
George is a Managing Director on the Investment Research team and has over 15 years of experience in alternative investments. He is responsible for sourcing, conducting investment research, and evaluating managers across relative value strategies.
Prior to joining Aksia in 2019, George was a Strategy Head focusing on global macro & trading strategies at UBP Asset Management where he was responsible for sourcing and due diligence across discretionary global macro, fixed income arbitrage and commodity strategies. Before that, George worked as a research analyst at Ermitage UK Ltd. where he focused mostly on long/short equity strategies in Europe.
George graduated from Bayes Business School, City, University of London with a BS in Banking and International Finance. He is a CFA charterholder.
Zack Driscoll
Meketa Investment Group
Zack Driscoll
Meketa Investment Group
Zack Driscoll, CFA, serves as a research consultant specializing in marketable alternatives (hedge funds). Zack is a member of Meketa’s Corporate Responsibility Committee, Emerging and Diverse Manager Committee, and Marketable Securities Oversight Committee. Prior to joining Meketa in 2018, Zack was a Client Service Senior Associate at State Street Global Services. He is a CFA Charterholder and received a Bachelor of Business Administration from Villanova University.
Joe Tolen
Cambridge Associates
Joe Tolen
Cambridge Associates
Joe Tolen is a Senior Investment Director of Credit Strategies based at the London offices of Cambridge Associates.
Prior to joining Cambridge Associates in 2023, Joe was Director of Multi-Asset Strategies for the Indiana Public Retirement System (“INPRS”) for four years. In his role Joe was responsible for the formulation and implementation of the Absolute Return and Risk Parity portfolios (~$11.5bn of Defined Benefit assets). Within Absolute Return, Joe focused on allocations to Insurance Linked, Fixed Income Relative Value, Global Macro, Event Driven, Structured Credit, CTA, Multi-Strategy, Co-Investments, and Fund of Fund strategies. The Risk Parity portfolio was made up of direct manager allocations as well as an internal custom index. Before his role at INPRS, Joe worked on the Equity Derivatives Sales Trading desk for Morgan Stanley in London. In this role, Joe served as sales coverage for North American-based clients trading European options, futures, swaps, and exotics.
Joe holds a Bachelor of Science in Finance and Entrepreneurship from Indiana University and is a CAIA Charterholder.
Steven Wilson, CAIA
Teacher Retirement System of Texas
Steven Wilson, CAIA
Teacher Retirement System of Texas
Steven Wilson is a Director in the Public Markets group at the Teacher Retirement System of Texas, a $190 billion pension system serving 1.9 million active and retired educators and their families. Mr. Wilson is responsible for the $10B Stable Value Hedge Fund Portfolio, which includes allocations to Equity Market Neutral, Macro, Managed Futures, Platform, Credit and Reinsurance Hedge Funds. He is also responsible for the $7B World Equity Portfolio, which includes Beta One strategies benchmarked to global equity indices.
Prior to joining TRS, Mr. Wilson was an Investment Director at Ameriprise Private Wealth Advisors, where he oversaw fund selection for $250 million of client assets.
Mr. Wilson received an MBA from the Rice University Jones School of Business in 2012, is a graduate of the University of Texas at Austin McCombs School of Business in 2006, and holds the CAIA designation.
Episode 22: Views on Quant Strategies, Including CTAs
June 2022
Darrel Pfeifauf
Advocate Aurora Health
Darrel Pfeifauf
Advocate Aurora Health
Darrel J. Pfeifauf serves as Vice President of Hedge Funds and Risk for Advocate Aurora Health in Illinois and Wisconsin. In this role he is responsible for the design and management of the Hedge Fund portfolio. Additionally, Mr. Pfeifauf is responsible for developing, maintaining, and applying the risk management framework across the Advocate Aurora investment program. Prior to joining Advocate Aurora, he served as a Portfolio Manager for Mercer Investment Management as well as had responsibility to extension of staff engagements with Not-for-Profit institutions. Mr. Pfeifauf began his career as a Trader for Bridgewater Associates and then moved to an allocator role with the Washington University Investment Management Company. Mr. Pfeifauf holds a BSBA in Finance and Economics from the University of Tulsa and an MBA from Washington University. Mr. Pfeifauf currently serves as a Board Director for the Missouri Foundation for Health and is Chair of the Investment Committee.
Roger Hilty
LGT Capital Partners
Roger Hilty
LGT Capital Partners
Roger Hilty (Swiss) is a Partner at LGT Capital Partners in Pfaeffikon, Switzerland. He is the co-Head of the Multi-Manager investment team and a lead portfolio manager for Systematic Strategies. Mr Hilty joined the firm in September 2004 from LGT Bank AG, where he started his career in January 2000 in the Trading/Treasury division. From 2000 to 2004, his responsibilities involved activities in equity, fixed-income, currency and commodity exchange traded and OTC products. Mr Hilty holds a Bachelor degree in Business Administration and an MBA in Finance from University of Liechtenstein. He is a regular invited speaker at conferences. Before starting in Finance, Mr Hilty was a professional road racing cyclist in the international cycling team GS Ericsson Villiger (ERI). He is fluent in German and English.
Evelina Klerides
Albourne
Evelina Klerides
Albourne
Partner and Quant Hedge Fund & Dynamic Beta IDD Analyst at Albourne Partners. Previously, a Researcher at Aspect Capital, performing quantitative systematic trading research influencing all parts of the investment programmes. Prior to Aspect, held roles at Bank of America Merrill Lynch and Imperial College Business School. BA in Mathematics from the University of Cambridge, MSc in Operational Research from the London School of Economics and PhD in Management Science from the Imperial College Business School.
Steven Wilson, CAIA
Teacher Retirement System of Texas
Steven Wilson, CAIA
Teacher Retirement System of Texas
Steven Wilson is a Director in the Public Markets group at the Teacher Retirement System of Texas, a $190 billion pension system serving 1.9 million active and retired educators and their families. Mr. Wilson is responsible for the $10B Stable Value Hedge Fund Portfolio, which includes allocations to Equity Market Neutral, Macro, Managed Futures, Platform, Credit and Reinsurance Hedge Funds. He is also responsible for the $7B World Equity Portfolio, which includes Beta One strategies benchmarked to global equity indices.
Prior to joining TRS, Mr. Wilson was an Investment Director at Ameriprise Private Wealth Advisors, where he oversaw fund selection for $250 million of client assets.
Mr. Wilson received an MBA from the Rice University Jones School of Business in 2012, is a graduate of the University of Texas at Austin McCombs School of Business in 2006, and holds the CAIA designation.
Tom Finnerty
Franklin Templeton Investment Solutions
Tom Finnerty
Franklin Templeton Investment Solutions
Thomas Finnerty is the Head of Global Macro on the Investment Management (IM) team, overseeing the firm's investments in discretionary and systematic macro strategies.
Mr. Finnerty has been with Franklin Templeton Investment Solutions since November 2009, initially focused on credit, relative value and event driven strategies and subsequently across multiple other hedge fund strategies. He relocated to the firm's London office in 2013 to cover managers in the region across hedge fund strategies and was subsequently named Head of Global Macro in 2019. Mr. Finnerty relocated back to the United States in 2022.
Prior to joining Franklin Templeton Investment Solutions, Mr. Finnerty worked as an investment associate for Chapin Hill Advisors, a private wealth manager, from 2008 to 2009. Before that, he was a middle office trade analyst at BGC Partners, Cantor Fitzgerald's interdealer broker-dealer, until mid-2008.
Mr. Finnerty received a Master of Arts degree in Economics from Fordham University's Graduate School of Arts and Sciences and graduated cum laude from Fordham University with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics.
Episode 21: Endowments and Foundations' Views on Alternative Investments
July 2021
J.P. Boyd, CAIA
Golden Leaf Foundation
J.P. Boyd, CAIA
Golden Leaf Foundation
J.P. Boyd, CAIA, joined Golden LEAF in February 2017 as Golden LEAF’s investment officer. He is involved in all aspects of the investment process. Prior to joining Golden LEAF, J.P. was an investment officer at the South Carolina Retirement System Investment Commission (RSIC) in Columbia, South Carolina. He spent eight years at RSIC and oversaw a $2.7 billion low-beta hedge fund portfolio of the $27.7 billion Plan. Prior to RSIC, J.P. was a research intern at the Palmetto Institute.
J.P. received a bachelor’s degree in business administration from the University of South Carolina’s Darla Moore School of Business where he double majored in international business and finance. He also is a Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst.
Ray Schleinkofer, CFA
UCLA Investment Company
Ray Schleinkofer, CFA
UCLA Investment Company
Ray joined UCLA Investment Company in 2019 bringing nearly 25 years of experience in the investment management industry, including 14 years sourcing and selecting managers across asset classes. Ray is responsible for marketable investments with a specific focus on the long only and multi-strategy asset classes. Most recently, Ray was the Senior Portfolio Manager for external managers in the traditional asset classes at the Pennsylvania Public School Employees’ Retirement System (PSERS). In this capacity, Ray had responsibility for over $19 billion of external manager mandates across 30 strategies. Prior to joining PSERS, Ray served as the CIO of ViosCapital, a single-family office in suburban Philadelphia where Ray hired over 40 investment managers around the globe in both traditional and alternative asset classes. In each of these roles Ray was critical in developing the infrastructure and investment processes of institutional investment offices. Earlier in his career, Ray spent 10 years in equity research at firms including Thomas Weisel Partners and SG Cowen. Ray is a graduate of the Wharton School of Business and a holder of the CFA designation.
Joe Rumph, CFA
MacArthur Foundation
Joe Rumph, CFA
MacArthur Foundation
Joe Rumph is responsible for portfolio construction and for evaluating strategies and portfolio risk.
He worked for five years as Associate Director, Investments at the Kresge Foundation in Troy, Michigan, where he sourced and evaluated investment opportunities across asset classes and worked with the team on tactical and strategic asset allocation and hedging strategies. He also worked as a Summer Analyst at Alyeska Investment Group, a long/short equity hedge fund in Chicago.
Joe recently received an MBA at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and earned a BA in Economics and Philosophy from the University of Michigan. He is a Chartered Financial Analyst.
David Gilmore, CAIA
The Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation
David Gilmore, CAIA
The Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation
David Gilmore joined The Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation in 2014 to help start and build their investment office. The Foundation has approximately $2.9 billion in assets and distributes $130 million in grants each year. The portfolio is invested across all asset classes including hedge funds, private equity, venture capital and real assets. David is responsible for the design and implementation of the Foundation’s strategic and tactical asset allocation, investment manager selection, risk management, and market research.
Prior to joining the Foundation, David helped start The Ohio State University investment office in 2009 and served in several senior roles. The investment office was responsible for the investment management of the University’s $3.4 billion long-term investment pool. David was previously a partner at Gerber/Taylor Capital Advisors, Gerber/Taylor is an independent investment advisory firm. During his tenure the firm consulted on over $20 billion in assets and managed over $3 billion in discretionary fund of funds mainly focused on hedge funds and private equity investments. David earned his BBA from Baylor University and an MBA with a concentration in Finance from the University of Memphis. David holds the Certified Financial Planner™ professional (CFP®) designation and the Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst (CAIA) designation.
Episode 20: Growth of Alternative Investments with Healthcare Institutions
July 2021
Adam J. Smith, CFA, CAIA
Cleveland Clinic
Adam J. Smith, CFA, CAIA
Cleveland Clinic
Adam joined the Cleveland Clinic in May 2017 and has two decades of investment experience, focused almost exclusively on managing investments for non-profit institutions. He is part of the team responsible for managing the Clinic’s investible financial assets, including the long-term investment portfolio, the short-term investment portfolio, a defined-benefit pension master trust, and an offshore captive insurance fund. Adam is involved with all aspects of managing the portfolios, including asset allocation, manager selection, and portfolio structure; however, his primary responsibility is conducting investment manager due diligence across all asset classes, with an emphasis on absolute return hedge funds, real assets, and fixed income.
Prior to joining the Cleveland Clinic, Adam was the Director of Investments at Mercy Health (Cincinnati), where he was responsible for managing a long-term investment portfolio and a defined-benefit pension plan. Before that, Adam spent more than a decade in institutional investment consulting, focused on asset allocation and due diligence of investment managers across all asset classes.
Adam holds an undergraduate degree from Brown University and has earned the Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) and Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst (CAIA) designations.
Casey Plante, CFA
M Health Fairview
Casey Plante, CFA
M Health Fairview
Casey Plante is Director of Investments for M Health Fairview, an integrated academic health system located in Minneapolis, MN. Mr. Plante oversees approximately $2.5 billion in operating, insurance and foundation assets, and over $3 billion in defined contribution assets, serving many different constituents within M Health Fairview with diverse investment needs. He is responsible for asset allocation and manager selection recommendations across all asset classes, including alternative investments, and oversees all investment operations. Mr. Plante has nearly 15 years of institutional investment experience and earned his MBA from the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, MN.
Alex Chung
CommonSpirit Health
Alex Chung
CommonSpirit Health
Alex is generalist on the CommonSpirit Health investment team focusing on hedge funds and public equities. Alex joined Dignity Health in 2018 from Goldman Sachs Asset Management (GSAM) where he was a member of the Quantitative Investment Strategies (QIS) team. Alex was a portfolio manager for multi-asset alternative strategies including hedge fund replication and alternative risk premia. Alex earned a B.S. from MIT in Computer Science and Masters in Computational Finance from Carnegie Mellon.
Bill Camelio
Yale New Haven Health
Bill Camelio
Yale New Haven Health
Bill Camelio, Senior Investment Strategist with Yale New Haven Health since December 2014. Previously, Mr. Camelio served as senior associate at Segal Rogerscasey and investment specialist at Prudential Financial, among other positions. Mr. Camelio also holds the title of pension commissioner for the Town of Wallingford, CT. Mr. Camelio holds a B.A. in finance from Merrimack College and an MBA in finance from Northeastern University.
Episode 19: Use of Alternative Investment Strategies to Enhance the Risk Adjusted Returns of a Pension Fund Portfolio (Part 2)
April 2021
Marcus Frampton, CFA, CAIA, FRM
Alaska Permanent Fund Corporation
Marcus Frampton, CFA, CAIA, FRM
Alaska Permanent Fund Corporation
Marcus Frampton serves as the Chief Investment Officer for the Alaska Permanent Fund.
He joined APFC in September of 2012 and has served as the Director of Investments, Real Assets & Absolute Return. Prior to joining the APFC, Marcus held diverse roles ranging from investment banking (Lehman Brothers), private equity (PCG Capital Partners), and acted as an executive of a private equity backed portfolio company (LPL Financial).
Mr. Frampton holds a BA in Business-Economics with a minor in Accounting from UCLA.
Frank J. Mihail, CFA, CAIA
New Mexico Public Employees Retirement Association
Frank J. Mihail, CFA, CAIA
New Mexico Public Employees Retirement Association
Frank Mihail is a Director on New Mexico PERA’s Alpha Team where he leads portfolio management for long-short strategies (absolute return strategies in a portable alpha construct) and long-biased strategies (active management strategies across all asset classes).
Prior to joining New Mexico PERA, Frank spent seven years in private wealth management. Frank holds a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from UC Santa Barbara and an MBA from UCLA Anderson School of Management.
Katherine Molnar
Fairfax County Police Officers Retirement System
Katherine Molnar
Fairfax County Police Officers Retirement System
Ms. Molnar joined Fairfax County Retirement Systems in 2013 as a Senior Investment Officer responsible for managing the Fairfax County Police Officers Retirement System, a $1.3 billion plan. Her responsibilities include all aspects of portfolio management and oversight, including strategic and tactical asset and risk allocation, selection and supervision of external investment managers and risk management. From 2001 until 2012, Ms. Molnar was Vice President, Senior Research Analyst at AIG Investments’ Hedge Fund Solutions Group – both in London and New York. At AIG Investments, Ms. Molnar was responsible for due diligence procedures and research including: sourcing new managers, monitoring current hedge funds, analyzing portfolio risk and performance, making new investment recommendations to an investment committee as well as hedge fund asset allocation recommendations for portfolio construction. She was additionally responsible for portfolio reviews and overall asset allocation recommendations for external client portfolios. Previously, she was Vice President, Market Research Analyst at Citigroup Investments’ Alternative Investment Strategies group. Prior investment management experience includes positions at Paribas Asset Management as well as Trevor Stewart Burton & Jacobsen. Additionally, Ms. Molnar spent one year in Warsaw, Poland launching the first retail mutual funds available to the Polish market as well as two years in Frankfurt, Germany as an intern with J.P. Morgan. Ms. Molnar received a B.S. in Business Administration/Finance from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She is a CFA charterholder.
Jason Rector, CFA
State of Wisconsin Investment Board
Jason Rector, CFA
State of Wisconsin Investment Board
Jason Rector a Senior Analyst at the State of Wisconsin Investment Board (SWIB) located in Madison, Wisconsin. Jason’s responsibilities include manager due diligence, portfolio construction, and oversight of the absolute return and beta one external manager relationships.
Prior to joining SWIB, Jason was an Analyst on the manager due diligence team at Mesirow Advanced Strategies in Chicago, IL. During his tenure at Mesirow, Jason spent time on the investment team as well as the operational due diligence team. Jason has an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and a bachelor’s degree from Marquette University. Jason is also a CFA Charterholder.
Episode 18: Use of Alternative Investment Strategies to Enhance the Risk Adjusted Returns of a Pension Fund Portfolio (Part 1)
April 2021
Joe Tolen
Cambridge Associates
Joe Tolen
Cambridge Associates
Joe Tolen is a Senior Investment Director of Credit Strategies based at the London offices of Cambridge Associates.
Prior to joining Cambridge Associates in 2023, Joe was Director of Multi-Asset Strategies for the Indiana Public Retirement System (“INPRS”) for four years. In his role Joe was responsible for the formulation and implementation of the Absolute Return and Risk Parity portfolios (~$11.5bn of Defined Benefit assets). Within Absolute Return, Joe focused on allocations to Insurance Linked, Fixed Income Relative Value, Global Macro, Event Driven, Structured Credit, CTA, Multi-Strategy, Co-Investments, and Fund of Fund strategies. The Risk Parity portfolio was made up of direct manager allocations as well as an internal custom index. Before his role at INPRS, Joe worked on the Equity Derivatives Sales Trading desk for Morgan Stanley in London. In this role, Joe served as sales coverage for North American-based clients trading European options, futures, swaps, and exotics.
Joe holds a Bachelor of Science in Finance and Entrepreneurship from Indiana University and is a CAIA Charterholder.
Matthew Smagacz, CFA, FRM
State of Wyoming
Matthew Smagacz, CFA, FRM
State of Wyoming
Matthew Smagacz, CFA, FRM is the Senior Investment Officer of the Wyoming State Treasurer’s Office where he is integral in managing the $20 billion sovereign wealth portfolio. He has fifteen years of buy-side experience, specializing in alternatives and fixed income. He holds a BSBA in Finance from Washington University in Saint Louis and is a member of the Global Association of Risk Professionals, the CFA Society of Chicago, the CFA Society of Colorado and the CFA Institute.
Mohamed Farid
World Bank
Mohamed Farid
World Bank
Mohamed Farid is a Principal Portfolio Manager / Head of Absolute Return Strategies at the World Bank Pension Fund, managing over $4 billion of Absolute Return Strategies portfolio. Mohamed has over 23 years of experience investing directly in hedge funds and is an active member of Investment Committee at the Pension Plan portfolio. Mohamed has opportunistically co-invested with some hedge fund managers and implemented internal hedging strategies.
Prior to joining the World Bank Pension Plan, Mohamed worked for Deloitte & Touche and KPMG financial consulting groups in Toronto, Canada, Washington D.C, Egypt and Thailand where he led acquisitions and bankruptcy engagements for leading clients in North America and Asia. Mohamed started his career in commercial banking. He holds a master’s degree from the Johns Hopkins University in International Economics and Political Science as well as a Master’s degree in Banking and Finance from Finafrica Foundation in Milan, Italy.
Episode 17: Enhancing Diversity in the Alternative Investment Industry
Ferbruary 2021
Sasha Kus, CFA
Albourne Partners
Sasha Kus, CFA
Albourne Partners
Sasha Kus, CFA is a Partner and Senior Portfolio Analyst at Albourne Partners, a non-discretionary investment consultant specializing in alternative assets. Since joining Albourne in 2013, Sasha has advised on portfolio construction, manager selection, risk analysis, and implementation to a rage of institutional investors including corporate and public pension plans, endowments, foundations, family offices, and financial intermediaries. Sasha began her career at the endowment office at the University of Chicago. She holds an MBA from Columbia University and B.A. in Economics from the University of Chicago and is a CFA charterholder.
Gurneet Sehmbhi, CFA
Mercer
Gurneet Sehmbhi, CFA
Mercer
Gurneet Sehmbhi is a Private Equity Specialist at Mercer Alternatives based in London. Ms. Sehmbhi joined Pavilion Alternatives Group in 2015, which was acquired by Mercer in 2018.
Ms. Sehmbhi assists in the research of private markets opportunities primarily in Europe, in addition to supporting the European investment team on advisory-related work.
She has been in the financial services industry since 2015. Previously, Ms. Sehmbhi held internship positions at RRS Shares and Stock Brokers, India; Accelera Language; and Standard Chartered. Gurneet Sehmbhi holds a BSc in Economics from University of Warwick. She is a CFA® charterholder.
Meredith Jones
Aon
Meredith Jones
Aon
Meredith is the head of the global ESG practice at Aon, offering ESG evaluation, risk mitigation and sustainability services to investment managers and corporate issuers. She also is active in the investment consulting group where she is a senior member of the responsible investment team and chair of the emerging and diverse manager committee. In her roles at Aon, Meredith is responsible for providing ESG and sustainability analysis and solutions to corporations and investment managers, responsible investment policy and implementation, clients engagement on emerging/diverse manager and Responsible Investment (ESG, SRI, MRI and Impact) initiatives. She also provides board, C-Suite and investment committee education and training, portfolio assessment, program recommendations, and due diligence services. She is a frequent speaker at conference and provides thought leadership for the firm as well.
Von Hughes JD, CAIA
PAAMCO Prisma
Von Hughes JD, CAIA
PAAMCO Prisma
Von Hughes JD, CAIA, Managing Director and Partner, joined PAAMCO in 2003. Von serves on the PAAMCO Prisma Executive Committee and manages both the firm’s global Strategic Advisory and Client Acquisition efforts. Von specializes in public pension plan governance, advising public pension trustees, investment committees and investment staffs on governance and internal resource management. He is the author of U.S. Public Pension Handbook: A Comprehensive Guide for Trustees and Investment Staff (McGraw-Hill, anticipated 2019), a practical guide for the public pension trustee specifically and pension professionals in general. Von is a frequent speaker on the topics of hedge fund program structure and public pension governance. He began his career at Goldman, Sachs & Co. in New York as an Associate in the Mergers & Acquisitions Group and then as a Vice President in the Equity Capital Markets Group. Von is a trustee of the Greenwich Roundtable, a non-profit research and educational organization for investors allocating to alternative investments. Von is a trustee of the National Association of Investment Companies, a Washington, DC-based trade association that serves as the largest network of diverse-owned and emerging private equity firms and hedge funds. He is also a Trustee of Northside Center for Child Development, a Harlem-based non-profit organization that provides early childhood development services in the NYC area. He received his JD from Harvard Law School, where he was selected as an editor of the Harvard Law Review, his MPP from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, and he holds a BA in Philosophy (cum laude) from Yale University.
Amy Hepburn
Investor Leadership Network
Amy Hepburn
Investor Leadership Network
Amy Hepburn is a recognized Impact Investing expert and social entrepreneur with deep expertise on gender lens social investments and the care of children in crises.
In this capacity, she has spent 20 years driving social change globally in the private, non-profit and public sectors through the creation of unique public/private partnerships and investing for high impact social returns.
Her partners consist of visionary leaders and influencers, governments, social entrepreneurs, non-profits, forward thinking companies, foundations and venture philanthropists seeking innovative solutions to persistent social issues.
Amy was a Delegate on the first G7 Gender Equality Advisory Council created by Prime Minister Trudeau, and an active member of the NationSwell Council and The Global Women’s Forum on Economy and Society.
She has Faculty appointments at Duke University and George Washington University where she teaches on social impact, gender equality, the care of children in crises, human rights and humanitarian action.
Tina Byles Williams
Xponance
Tina Byles Williams
Xponance
Ms. Tina Byles Williams is currently the Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Chief Investment Officer (CIO), Director, and Chairman of the Board of Directors for Xponance, Inc. Xponance is the successor firm representing the integration of two legacy firms, FIS Group and Piedmont Investment Advisors. Ms. Byles Williams is the lead portfolio manager of the firm's active global equity strategies and chairs the Investment Committee for Multi-Manager strategies. She has over 30 years of investment experience. Before founding Xponance and its predecessor firm FIS Group, Ms. Byles Williams was a principal and senior consultant with the investment consulting firm WHP, Inc. Ms. Byles Williams sits on numerous boards and is well regarded and frequently quoted for her insights on the investment management industry, emerging or entrepreneurial managers and global and emerging market equities.
Episode 16: Trends in ESG Investing
Ferbruary 2021
Juliette Menga, CFA
Aetos Alternatives Management
Juliette Menga, CFA
Aetos Alternatives Management
Ms. Menga is a Director on Aetos’ investment team and Chair of the ESG Committee. Prior to joining Aetos in 2020, Ms. Menga was a Director of Investments and Associate Portfolio Manager at Alternative Investment Group (AIG) from 2007, where she launched and co-managed two fund of hedge fund strategies focused on ESG and opportunistic investments. Prior to AIG, she worked at New York Life Investment Management as an Analyst in their Derivative Analytics Group and at Excalibur Advisors as a Research Analyst.
Ms. Menga received dual Bachelor of Science degrees in Computer Science and Mathematics at Kennesaw State University and a Master of Science in Financial Mathematics from Florida State University.
Ms. Menga is a CFA Charterholder, a member of PRI’s Hedge Fund Advisory Committee and served on the PRI Hedge Fund Working Group to develop guidelines for the application of ESG principles to hedge strategies. She serves on the Investment Committee of the Nellie Mae Educational Foundation as an Advisory Board member and is a board member of Wholesome Health Promotions, an organization that educates and promotes general wellness, good nutrition and health practices in rural and underprivileged communities in Cameroon.
Bess Joffe
Church Commissioners for England
Bess Joffe
Church Commissioners for England
Bess is the Commissioners' Head of Responsible Investment and leads the team who engage across the Commissioners' multi-asset investment portfolio. Bess joined the Comissioners in 2020 from Lloyds Banking Group, where she held the position of Director of Investor Relations - ESG. Previously, Bess led the stewardship team at TIAA (Nuveen) and held senior roles at Goldman Sachs and Hermes Equity Ownership Services.
Michelle Perry, CA (SA)
Aksia
Michelle Perry, CA (SA)
Aksia
Michelle is a Director on the Operational Due Diligence team and has over 19 years of industry experience. She performs and manages the operational reviews of alternative investments. In her role, Michelle conducts onsite visits with managers, liaises with service providers, reviews documentation and prepares analysis for Aksia’s clients. Michelle is also Aksia’s ESG and Sustainability Officer and is responsible for overseeing the evaluation of ESG considerations and their integration into Aksia’s research approach.
Prior to joining Aksia in 2014, Michelle was the Head of Operational Due Diligence on the Alternative Investments team at Santander. Before joining Santander, Michelle held various roles within Deloitte’s global offices, including Audit Manager with the financial services division (Sydney, Australia) and the transaction services division (London, UK).
Michelle graduated from the University of Cape Town with a BS in Finance with honors and has a Postgraduate Diploma in Accounting. She is a Chartered Accountant (South Africa).
Herman Bril
United Nations Pension Fund
Herman Bril
United Nations Pension Fund
Herman Bril joined the UNJSPF as Director in June of 2016.
With 25 years of experience in international financial institutions in multiple countries, Mr. Bril possesses broad level expertise encompassing asset management, pension funds, life insurance, investment banking, derivatives trading and treasury operations.
Most recently, he served as Group CFO and Managing Director Cardano Risk Management, with postings in London, Rotterdam and Amsterdam over six and a half years. Prior to Cardano, Mr. Bril was Senior Vice President, Head of Treasury and Capital Management at Aegon NV and Head of Asset Management and Chief Investment Officer of Syntrus Achmea Asset Management, where he was responsible for Dutch pension funds with assets under management totaling Euro 45 billion. Mr. Bril spent 3 years as the Head of Treasury at FGH Bank and trustee of FGH Bank’s pension fund. He started his career as a fixed income derivative trader for ABN AMRO, Dresdner Bank and Deutsche Bank in Amsterdam, Frankfurt and London.
Mr. Bril graduated from the Free University in Amsterdam with a Masters in Economics. Additionally, he graduated from INSEAD where he earned a diploma in Consulting and Coaching for Change. Mr. Bril recently completed a Masters degree in Studies in Sustainability Leadership from the University of Cambridge.
Brian A. Rice
California State Teachers' Retirement System
Brian A. Rice
California State Teachers' Retirement System
Mr. Rice is a Portfolio Manager in the CalSTRS Sustainable Investment & Stewardship Strategies unit and has been leading sustainability efforts at CalSTRS for over 15 years. He is responsible for CalSTRS sustainable manager portfolio, a $2.2 billion externally managed public equity strategy that employs fund managers incorporating ESG factors into their investment portfolio construction and management.
Mr. Rice also leads CalSTRS Transition to a Low Carbon Economy initiative, a cross asset class effort focused on managing physical and transitional investment risks, and implementing investment opportunities, associated with climate change.
Mr. Rice serves on the advisory board of the Climate Bonds Initiative and the Strategic Investor Initiative, and on the advisory committee of the Ceres Water Hub. Mr. Rice received an MBA from the U.C. Davis Graduate School of Management and a bachelor’s degree in Economics-Business from U.C.L.A.
Episode 15: US Investors' Perspective: What Strategies will Outperform in the Next 24 Months?
January 2021
Chris Walvoord
Aon
Chris Walvoord
Aon
Chris leads Aon Hewitt’s Global Liquid Alternatives Team within Global Investment Management. He oversees research and investment activities across a variety of liquid alternative strategies including hedge funds, currencies, CTAs, and GTAA. His group is responsible for researching, recommending and monitoring managers for both advisory and delegated client portfolios.
Prior to joining AHIC in 2016, Chris was a portfolio manager and a member of the investment committee at William Blair. Chris was the lead PM for the custom hedge fund business at Blair which managed client specific portfolios for large institutional clients. He was also the lead PM on the group’s 40 Act fund of hedge funds. Chris worked extensively with William Blair’s distribution team to help clients understand the role of hedge funds within their investment portfolios.
William Blair entered the fund of hedge funds business by acquiring Guidance Capital, a fund of hedge funds firm founded in 2001, where Chris was one of five equity partners. As a member of the investment committee at Guidance, he was involved in both hedge fund research and portfolio construction. He also developed the portfolio risk management system that was used at both Guidance and William Blair.
Prior to joining Guidance Capital, Chris managed an unconstrained bond strategy at the Northern Trust. The mandates for these funds allowed investments in a wide range of fixed income instruments including corporate and asset backed bonds, swaps, options, futures, and other interest rate and credit derivatives. Chris began his investment career in the Capital Markets Strategies Group at Nuveen, where he assisted investment banking clients with their derivative transactions. Prior to Nuveen, Chris worked as an automotive engineer in Motorola’s Automotive Electronics Group and in Ford’s Advanced Vehicle Engineering Group.
Chris earned an M.B.A. degree in finance from The University of Chicago Booth School of Business, an M.S in Mechanical Engineering from the University of California Berkeley and a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Illinois.
Alexander Leiken
RVK
Alexander Leiken
RVK
Alexander joined RVK in 2011 and is the Manager Research Consultant at our Portland office. He was promoted to Alternatives Manager Research Analyst in 2012, to a senior-level alternatives analyst in 2014, and to Manager Research Consultant in 2019.
Alexander’s primary responsibilities include leading RVK’s manager research efforts for Multi-Strategy Hedge Funds, CTAs, and Funds of Hedge Funds, as well as advising clients with respect to hedge fund portfolio construction.
Prior to joining RVK, he spent nine months at Fisher Investments working as a Client Services Associate. Alexander was able to gain valuable experience acting as the department’s custodian Point of Contact while working with Fisher’s Investment Counselors to service high-net-worth clients. He graduated from the University of Oregon with a Bachelor of Science degree in Economics. Alexander was an active member of the University of Oregon Investment Group, which manages roughly $1 million across three portfolios.
Chris Solarz, CFA, CPA, CAIA
Cliffwater
Chris Solarz, CFA, CPA, CAIA
Cliffwater
Chris is a Managing Director of Cliffwater LLC in our New York office and a member of the hedge fund research team. Prior to joining Cliffwater in 2011, Chris was a Senior Analyst at SAIL Advisors, where he focused on manager selection and due diligence as Head of Research for tactical trading and relative value strategies. Previous experience includes working for ING Investment Management, Antarctica Asset Management, Societe Generale Barr Devlin, and CIBC World Markets.
He earned a BA in Economics and Anthropology from the University of Pennsylvania and a MComm in Finance from the University of New South Wales, where he was a Federation Scholar. Chris is a Certified Public Accountant, holds the Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst® designation, the Chartered Financial Analyst® designation, and is a member of the New York Society of Security Analysts. Chris has broken 6 Guinness World Records, has run marathons on all 7 continents and in all 50 US states.
Cian Desmond
Wilshire Associates
Cian Desmond
Wilshire Associates
Cian Desmond is a Portfolio Manager, AVP – Alternative Investments at Wilshire Associates with responsibility for investment research, strategy and portfolio management across multiple types of alternative investments, including alternative income, specialty hedge funds, private real assets and private credit. Before joining Wilshire, Mr. Desmond worked as Director of Research at Shepherd Kaplan Krochuk LLC in Boston with primary responsibility for developing investment strategy, alternative investment research, and manager selection. Mr. Desmond is a CFA Level III candidate and received a BS in Finance from Wake Forest University.
Cedric Fan
Russell Investments
Cedric Fan
Russell Investments
Based in New York, Cedric Fan is the lead portfolio manager for Russell Investments’ hedge fund team. In this role, Cedric directly manages or oversees all multi-strategy and single-strategy hedge fund portfolios. Cedric also oversees the global hedge fund research team, which is composed of analysts in New York, Seattle, and London. The research team establishes and maintains ranks on all hedge fund products that are used in portfolios.
Prior to joining Russell Investments in 2004, Cedric worked at Bear Stearns in its risk management group. When he left Bear, he was serving as its first dedicated fixed income prime brokerage risk manager. Cedric began his career at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
B.S. (with distinction), Economics, University of Wisconsin-Madison M.A., Economics, New York University.
Episode 14: European Investors' Views on Hedge Funds: What Strategies are Seeing the Most Demand and Which are Expected to Outperform?
January 2021
James Munro, CAIA
Albourne Partners
James Munro, CAIA
Albourne Partners
James Munro, CAIA is a Partner and Senior Portfolio Analyst, at Albourne Partners in London. He has over 13 years’ experience in alternatives. Recently returning to Albourne after five years with Bloomberg in New York, where he was the Hedge Fund Business Manager, focused on total portfolio analysis.
James originally joined Albourne in 2007 in London before moving to the Connecticut office in 2009. He spent eight years with Albourne providing portfolio construction, manager selection and risk management advice to a broad mix of investor types including family offices, foundations, endowments, and public/private pension plans.
Prior to joining Albourne, James worked as a mechanical design engineer for six years. He earned an MBA from the Smurfit Business School (Ireland), and a Master of Industrial Engineering from University College Dublin (Ireland). He also holds a BAI in Mechanical Engineering and a BA in Mathematics from Trinity College Dublin (Ireland).
Roy Kuo
Church Commissioners for England
Roy Kuo
Church Commissioners for England
Roy is the Team Head of Alternative Strategies at the Church Commissioners, which manages the Church of England’s endowment. He is responsible for managing and growing the endowment’s allocations in the alternatives sector. Roy was previously the Head of Research at Dexion Capital, where he was responsible for the firm’s fund of funds mandates and for establishing investment partnerships with major investment managers in the credit, hedge fund, infrastructure and real estate sectors. Prior to this, he was the Alternatives Fund Manager at boutique fund of funds company Bramdean Asset Management. Roy holds a MBA from Said Business School (Oxford) and graduated from the University of Texas at Austin.
Olivier Kintgen
Banque Edmond De Rothschild
Olivier Kintgen
Banque Edmond De Rothschild
Olivier Kintgen, is the Head of Hedge fund portfolios at Banque Edmond de Rothschild in Geneva since August 2019. He has 34 years investment experience with last 20 years in Asset Management as a Portfolio Manager, managing Open ended funds, Fund of one and Advisory solutions. The range of expertise is cross assets with an edge in fixed Income Assets, complex derivatives products, and Risk Management. Olivier started his career at Bank of America in 1991 and held various assignments including Managing Director in charge with G7 Arbitrage & proprietary trading and Head of Sales Trading for European Emerging Markets.He spent 20y as Head of Research and CIO at ERAAM where he managed mandates for a wide range of Clients including large Pension Funds and Endowments. Olivier holds an MBA from ESSEC and BA from Paris IX Dauphine.
Edo Rulli
UBS
Edo Rulli
UBS
Edoardo is primarily responsible for directing cross-strategy research across the team's global investment team. His position also entails carrying out research and due-diligence on hedge funds as well as monitoring existing and prospective investments. Edoardo is a Senior Manager Function Holder for UBS AM (UK) Limited Board.
Before re-joining UBS in 2016, Edoardo was Head of Research at Falcon Money Management where he joined as partner in 2009.
Prior to that in 2008, he was Director at UBS A&Q AIS, the predecessor unit of HFS in London. Before that, Edoardo was a senior analyst at Tremont Capital Management in London in 2004, a multi-billion fund of funds. He started his career as an analyst in 2001 at Rasini & C. researching European and Asian hedge funds.
Episode 13: State of the Hedge Fund Industry
December 2020
Jack Inglis
AIMA
Jack Inglis
AIMA
Jack Inglis is the Chief Executive Officer of the Alternative Investment Management Association (AIMA*). He has been in the financial services industry and closely involved with hedge funds for over 30 years. Jack has held senior management positions at both Morgan Stanley, where he served for 16 years, and Barclays, where he was prior to joining AIMA. From 2007 to 2010 he was CEO of London based hedge fund manager, Ferox Capital Management. He served as a non-executive director of London Capital Group plc from 2007 to 2010 and currently sits on the board of the Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst Association (CAIA). He began his career in 1983 at UK stockbrokers James Capel (which was subsequently acquired by HSBC) and has extensive experience in origination, distribution, financing and trading across the fixed income and equity capital markets. Jack holds a Master of Arts in Economics from Cambridge University.
Jack is also Chair of the charity HFC Help for Children UK Affiliate Board and took up this role in January 2020.
*AIMA is a not-for-profit global trade association that represents the mutual interests of the alternative funds industry, including hedge funds and private debt funds. It has over 2,000 corporate members across more than 60 countries. AIMA operates out of offices in London, New York, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Singapore, Sydney, Tokyo & Toronto.
Margaret Franklin, CFA
CFA Institute
Margaret Franklin, CFA
CFA Institute
Margaret Franklin, CFA, leads CFA Institute and its more than 170,000 members worldwide in promoting the highest standards of education, ethics, and professional excellence in the investment profession. She assumed her role in September 2019 and has more than 25 years of investment and wealth management experience.
Before joining CFA Institute, Ms. Franklin led International Wealth Management for North America and was president of BNY Mellon Wealth Management, Advisory Services in Canada. She also served as a board member of BNY Mellon Trust Company (Cayman). Margaret joined BNY Mellon in 2016.
Prior to joining BNY Mellon, Ms. Franklin held multiple senior management positions, including president of Marret Private Wealth and COO of Marret Asset Management, a credit and hedge fund asset manager in Toronto. During that six-year tenure, she had direct oversight of all aspects of the private wealth business. Prior to joining Marret, Margaret was a partner with KJ Harrison & Partners.
Ms. Franklin began her career in the institutional business and has worked with pension plans, endowments, foundations, and government agencies at State Street Global Advisors, Mercer, and Barclays Global Investors.
She previously served as chair of CFA Institute Board of Governors and is a former president of the CFA Society Toronto Board. Ms. Franklin is a founding member of the CFA Institute Women in Investment Initiative, a past recipient of the Alfred C. Morley Distinguished Service Award in 2014, and a member of its Future of Finance Content Council.
She is also a member of the Michael Garron Hospital Foundation Board. Ms. Franklin earned a Bachelor of Administration in Economics from McMaster University in Ontario. She is a CFA charterholder and a member of the CFA Society Toronto.
Bill Kelly
CAIA Association
Bill Kelly
CAIA Association
William (Bill) J. Kelly is the CEO of the CAIA Association. Bill has been a frequent industry speaker, writer, and commentator on alternative investment topics around the world since taking the leadership role at the CAIA Association in January, 2014. Previously, Bill was the CEO of Boston Partners and one of seven founding partners of the predecessor firm, Boston Partners Asset Management which, prior to a majority interest being sold to Robeco Group in Rotterdam in 2002, was an employee-owned firm. Bill's career in the institutional asset management space spans over 30 years where he gained extensive managerial experience through successive CFO, COO and CEO roles.
Bryan Corbett
MFA
Bryan Corbett
MFA
Bryan Corbett is MFA’s President and CEO. He is a veteran of Washington and Wall Street. For the past 12 years, he was a senior executive at The Carlyle Group, most recently as Managing Director in the Corporate Private Equity segment and Head of the firm’s OneCarlyle Global Investment Resources Group. In this role, Mr. Corbett and his team provided strategic and operational support to investment teams and portfolio companies across segments.
For the first half of his Carlyle tenure, Mr. Corbett managed U.S. government and regulatory issues affecting Carlyle, its investments and the industry. In this role, he developed legislative and regulatory strategies relating to all of Carlyle’s business segments, including private equity, credit and real estate. In addition to serving on the boards of several Carlyle portfolio companies, Mr. Corbett started the firm’s global corporate citizenship program focused on responsible investing, published Carlyle’s inaugural corporate citizenship report, and started the firm’s initiative to recruit and place diverse individuals on portfolio company boards in the U.S.
Prior to joining Carlyle, Mr. Corbett served in the George W. Bush Administration as a Special Assistant to the President for Economic Policy and as the Senior Advisor to Deputy Secretary Robert Kimmitt at the Treasury Department. He also served as Majority Counsel on the Senate Banking Committee.
Mr. Corbett earned his JD from George Washington University Law School, where he was editor-in-chief of the George Washington Law Review, and earned his BA from University of Notre Dame.
James Williams
Hedgeweek
James Williams
Hedgeweek
James Williams is the Managing Editor at Hedgeweek, a fully digital newswire wire service that covers all aspects of the global hedge fund industry. James joined Hedgeweek in June 2010, where he reports on key developments spanning fund performance and strategy, legal and regulatory issues, technology and risk management. In addition, James has contributed articles on the hedge fund industry and capital markets to the likes of the Financial Times, International Financial Review Asia, and Dow Jones Financial News. Prior to joining Hedgeweek, James lived in Hong Kong for nine years where he worked as a financial copywriter and freelance journalist. James’s last role before leaving Asia was with JP Morgan where he worked as an in-house editor.
Episode 12: Use of Hedge Funds to Enhance the Risk Adjusted Returns of a Public Pension Fund Portfolio
October 2020
Michael Weinberg, CFA
APG Asset Management
Michael Weinberg, CFA
APG Asset Management
For 25 years Michael has invested directly at the security level and indirectly as an asset allocator in traditional and alternative asset classes. He is a Managing Director, Head of Hedge Funds and Alternative Alpha, at APG. Previously he was the Chief Investment Officer at MOV37 and Protege Partners. Michael is also an Adjunct Professor of Economics and Finance at Columbia Business School, where he teaches Institutional Investing, an advanced MBA course that he created. He is the Co-Founder of the Artificial Intelligence Finance Institute - AIFI.
Michael also testifies as an expert witness in financial and technology litigation. He was a portfolio manager and global head of equities at FRM, a multi-strategy investment solutions provider. Prior to that, Michael was a portfolio manager at Soros, the macro fund and family office, and at Credit Suisse. Before that he was a Real Estate analyst at Dean Witter.
Michael is a board member of AIMA and on its Research Committee. He is on the management advisory council for the Michael Price Student Investment Fund and a Special Advisor to The Tokyo University of Science’s Endowment. Michael is a founder and board member of Project Punch Card, a not-for-profit organization. He is a member of The Economic Club of New York. Michael is a former Chair at CFANY, where he has received multiple awards, including Volunteer of the Year. He is a research contributor to The World Economic Forum on the impact of AI on Finance.
Michael is a published author, having written for The New York Times, Institutional Investor and investment books. He has been interviewed by the Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, CNBC, Bloomberg and Reuters. Michael is a frequent panelist, moderator and lecturer for investment banks, institutional and family office organizations and business schools, including SALT and Harvard. Michael has a BS from New York University and an MBA from Columbia Business School.
Dominic J. Garcia
New Mexico Public Employees Retirement Association
Dominic J. Garcia
New Mexico Public Employees Retirement Association
Dominic Garcia serves as Chief Investment Officer for the New Mexico PERA, a $16 billion pension system that serves over 90,000 members and provides over $1.1 billion in annual benefits. At New Mexico PERA, Dominic has led the effort to integrate a risk-based approach, separating Alpha and Beta in its investment philosophy, which has helped the system produce strong risk adjusted returns and exceed benchmarks. Dominic is a native of New Mexico and began his allocator career over 15 years ago at New Mexico PERA as a Deputy CIO and came back home to re-join the system in 2017 as CIO. In between, for nearly a decade, Dominic served on the Investment Committee and as a Senior Alpha Manager at the State of Wisconsin Investment Board (SWIB). Dominic has been a speaker at numerous industry events and he and his teams’ have received numerous industry-wide awards recognizing their innovative work. Dominic was also named 40 under 40 for three consecutive years by industry publications. Dominic is a member of the Santa Fe Community Foundation, Impact Investing Committee and a member of the Managed Funds Association (MFA) Institutional Investor Advisory Council. Dominic has degrees from the University of New Mexico and University of Chicago and lives in an old adobe home in Santa Fe, NM with his wife and three children.
Katherine Molnar
Fairfax County Police Officers Retirement System
Katherine Molnar
Fairfax County Police Officers Retirement System
Ms. Molnar joined Fairfax County Retirement Systems in 2013 as a Senior Investment Officer responsible for managing the Fairfax County Police Officers Retirement System, a $1.3 billion plan. Her responsibilities include all aspects of portfolio management and oversight, including strategic and tactical asset and risk allocation, selection and supervision of external investment managers and risk management. From 2001 until 2012, Ms. Molnar was Vice President, Senior Research Analyst at AIG Investments’ Hedge Fund Solutions Group – both in London and New York. At AIG Investments, Ms. Molnar was responsible for due diligence procedures and research including: sourcing new managers, monitoring current hedge funds, analyzing portfolio risk and performance, making new investment recommendations to an investment committee as well as hedge fund asset allocation recommendations for portfolio construction. She was additionally responsible for portfolio reviews and overall asset allocation recommendations for external client portfolios. Previously, she was Vice President, Market Research Analyst at Citigroup Investments’ Alternative Investment Strategies group. Prior investment management experience includes positions at Paribas Asset Management as well as Trevor Stewart Burton & Jacobsen. Additionally, Ms. Molnar spent one year in Warsaw, Poland launching the first retail mutual funds available to the Polish market as well as two years in Frankfurt, Germany as an intern with J.P. Morgan. Ms. Molnar received a B.S. in Business Administration/Finance from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She is a CFA charterholder.
Mohamed Farid
World Bank
Mohamed Farid
World Bank
Mohamed Farid is a Principal Portfolio Manager / Head of Absolute Return Strategies at the World Bank Pension Fund, managing over $4 billion of Absolute Return Strategies portfolio. Mohamed has over 23 years of experience investing directly in hedge funds and is an active member of Investment Committee at the Pension Plan portfolio. Mohamed has opportunistically co-invested with some hedge fund managers and implemented internal hedging strategies.
Prior to joining the World Bank Pension Plan, Mohamed worked for Deloitte & Touche and KPMG financial consulting groups in Toronto, Canada, Washington D.C, Egypt and Thailand where he led acquisitions and bankruptcy engagements for leading clients in North America and Asia. Mohamed started his career in commercial banking. He holds a master’s degree from the Johns Hopkins University in International Economics and Political Science as well as a Master’s degree in Banking and Finance from Finafrica Foundation in Milan, Italy.
Episode 11: Emerging Managers: How to do it, Where they Fit, and Why?
September 2020
Panayiotis Lambropoulos
Employees Retirement System of Texas
Panayiotis Lambropoulos
Employees Retirement System of Texas
Panayiotis Lambropoulos CFA, CAIA, FRM is a Portfolio Manager at the Employees Retirement System of Texas – a $38 billion retirement plan – located in Austin, Texas. His responsibilities include sourcing, analyzing and evaluating potential third party managers deploying all types of alternative investment strategies. His primary focus is on the Trust’s Absolute Return Portfolio along with opportunistic investments in Emerging Managers. Panayiotis holds a B.S in Business Administration with a concentration in Finance and Marketing from Boston College, and an M.B.A in General Management from Northwestern University. Panayiotis is also a CFA, CAIA and FRM Charterholder.
Ray Schleinkofer, CFA
UCLA Investment Company
Ray Schleinkofer, CFA
UCLA Investment Company
Ray joined UCLA Investment Company in 2019 bringing nearly 25 years of experience in the investment management industry, including 14 years sourcing and selecting managers across asset classes. Ray is responsible for marketable investments with a specific focus on the long only and multi-strategy asset classes. Most recently, Ray was the Senior Portfolio Manager for external managers in the traditional asset classes at the Pennsylvania Public School Employees’ Retirement System (PSERS). In this capacity, Ray had responsibility for over $19 billion of external manager mandates across 30 strategies. Prior to joining PSERS, Ray served as the CIO of ViosCapital, a single-family office in suburban Philadelphia where Ray hired over 40 investment managers around the globe in both traditional and alternative asset classes. In each of these roles Ray was critical in developing the infrastructure and investment processes of institutional investment offices. Earlier in his career, Ray spent 10 years in equity research at firms including Thomas Weisel Partners and SG Cowen. Ray is a graduate of the Wharton School of Business and a holder of the CFA designation.
Matthew Smagacz, CFA, FRM
State of Wyoming
Matthew Smagacz, CFA, FRM
State of Wyoming
Matthew Smagacz, CFA, FRM is the Senior Investment Officer of the Wyoming State Treasurer’s Office where he is integral in managing the $20 billion sovereign wealth portfolio. He has fifteen years of buy-side experience, specializing in alternatives and fixed income. He holds a BSBA in Finance from Washington University in Saint Louis and is a member of the Global Association of Risk Professionals, the CFA Society of Chicago, the CFA Society of Colorado and the CFA Institute.
Devana Cohen, CFA
UJA - Federation of New York
Devana Cohen, CFA
UJA - Federation of New York
Devana Cohen is the Chief Investment Officer for the UJA-Federation of New York’s Endowment and Retirement Plans. Prior to joining UJA-Federation of New York in 2013, Ms. Cohen spent five years managing public market investments at the Ford Foundation and The California Endowment. Ms. Cohen was an Asset-Liability Manager at Toyota Motor Sales where she also served as a member of the investment team that managed the pension plan assets. Prior to starting a career in investments, she was as a Design Engineer developing semiconductor devices for International Rectifier. Ms. Cohen graduated from University of California at Berkeley with dual BS degrees in Chemistry and Chemical Engineering and earned an MBA from the UCLA Anderson School of management specializing in Finance and Entrepreneurial Studies. Ms. Cohen is a CFA charterholder.
John Sinclair
TIFF
John Sinclair
TIFF
John Sinclair joined TIFF in 2018 and serves as a Managing Director, overseeing Diversifying Strategies. He is primarily responsible for hedge fund investments in TIFF’s absolute return program and comprehensive portfolios. He also is a member of TIFF’s Investment Committee. Before joining TIFF, Mr. Sinclair founded Infusion Global Partners, a hedge fund of funds; founded Abundant Venture Partners, an early stage venture capital firm and startup incubator; served as Managing Director of Research at Fidelity Management and Research Co.; and held senior equity analyst and portfolio manager positions at firms including Sanford C. Bernstein and Montgomery Asset Management. He received a BA in History and Economics from Colgate University and an MA in International Affairs from Columbia University. Mr. Sinclair attended the Middlebury College language program and is fluent in Japanese.
Episode 10: Views on Hedge Funds from Endowments and Foundations
August 2020
Anurag Pandit, CFA
ALSAC / St. Jude Children's Research Hospital
Dan Parker
Texas Tech University
Dan Parker
Texas Tech University
Dan Parker is the Deputy Chief Investment Officer for Texas Tech University, and is based in Austin, Texas. In this role, he shares broad responsibility for policy, strategy, asset allocation, structure and processes across the organization and the portfolio, in addition to driving the endowment’s investments in public and private equity, diversifying and absolute return strategies, real assets and natural resources. Before relocating to Austin to join Texas Tech, Dan worked in New York as an Investment Officer with Helmsley Charitable Trust, as a Vice President in private equity with BlackRock and as an Associate in investment banking at Citigroup. He began his career serving as a US Marine, where he commanded infantry and reconnaissance units. He holds degrees from Tulane University and The College of William and Mary.
Al Kim, CFA, CAIA
Helmsley Charitable Trust
Al Kim, CFA, CAIA
Helmsley Charitable Trust
Al Y. Kim is a Director of Investments at the Helmsley Charitable Trust. In this role, Al is responsible for helping lead the development and implementation of the overall investment strategy at the Trust, which entails thematic research, manager due diligence, portfolio construction, and portfolio management across all segments of the investment program. Prior to Helmsley, Al was a Director in BlackRock’s OCIO business and a consultant at Wilshire Associates. Al has an MBA from the University of Chicago and a BS from the University of Southern California and holds the CFA and CAIA designations.
Brian Neale
University of Nebraska Foundation
Brian Neale
University of Nebraska Foundation
Brian Neale is the vice president of investments at the University of Nebraska Foundation. he has more than 20 years of institutional investment experience and currently is responsible for management of more than $2.8B of investable assets. In this role, his principal duties include establishing long-term asset allocation policies and short-term tactical tilts, manager research and selection, portfolio construction, compliance and oversight, and serving as principal investment liaison to the Foundations Investment Committee and Board of Directors. Executive management responsibilities include leading the investment office as well as serving as a member of the Foundations Executive Leadership Team. Neale also has direct P&L responsibility as the sole portfolio manager for more than $550M of internal capital. He holds an MBA from the College of William and Mary and a B.A. from the Virginia Military Institute.
Paul Chai, CFA, CAIA
Kansas State University Foundation
Paul Chai, CFA, CAIA
Kansas State University Foundation
Paul Chai joined the KSU Foundation in July 2018 and is the Director of Investments with primary responsibilities in manager sourcing, due diligence, monitoring and assisting the Chief Investment Officer in managing the endowment fund portfolio.
Prior to joining the KSU Foundation, he was senior vice president from 2006 to 2018 at Grandway Asset Management, a boutique multi-family office with its headquarters in Pasadena, CA. He managed funds of hedge funds portfolios ranging from $15 million to $800 million in size, as well as a portfolio of commercial real estate properties. Paul also sat on the firm’s investment committee, and acted as the head of client reporting and relations. Earlier in his career, he had worked as a business process consultant at Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (NYSE: TSM) from 2003 to 2006 and as an engineer at Pratt & Whitney, a subsidiary of United Technologies (NYSE: UTX) from 1999 to 2002.
Paul holds a Bachelor of Science degree in mechanical engineering from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and a Master of Business Administration degree from Carnegie Mellon University’s Tepper School of Business. He is a CFA charterholder and a CAIA charterholder in addition to passing Series 3 and Series 65 certification exams.
Episode 9: The Quest for Alpha: What Strategies Will Outperform in the Next 24 Months?
July 2020
Jonathan Bishop, CFA
Aetos Alternatives Management
Jonathan Bishop, CFA
Aetos Alternatives Management
Mr. Bishop is a Managing Director and the Deputy Chief Investment Officer of Aetos Alternatives Management. He has been with Aetos for 16 years and serves on the firm’s Investment Committee and as a Portfolio Manager for the firm’s commingled investment funds and its customized hedge fund solutions for large institutional investors. Jonathan brings particular expertise in credit, event-driven and special situations investing, having overseen these strategies for much of his time at Aetos. Prior to joining Aetos in 2004, Jonathan worked at SG Barr Devlin, where he focused on mergers, acquisitions and restructuring advisory assignments in the energy and power sectors.
He graduated from the University of Virginia, where he received a Bachelor of Science in Commerce with a concentration in Finance from the McIntire School. Additionally, Jonathan holds the Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) designation.
John Delano
Commonfund
John Delano
Commonfund
John Delano is Head of Commonfund Asset Management Research and Analytics and leads the team responsible for quantitative analysis of investments and managers. He also serves as a member of both the Commonfund Asset Management Investment and the Commonfund Asset Allocation Committees. Prior to joining Commonfund, John was a consultant in Global Public Opinion Research at Altria Corporate Services and a research assistant at Columbia University′s Institute of Social and Economic Research and Policy. Prior to that, he worked as a media buyer at Horizon Media, using statistical analysis to forecast audience deliveries for television commercials. John has a B.A. in Political Science from the University of Chicago and an M.A. in Quantitative Methods in the Social Sciences from Columbia University. He also holds the Certificate in Quantitative Finance (CQF).
Susan Webb
Appomattox Advisory
Susan Webb
Appomattox Advisory
Susan Webb is a founder and President/CIO of Appomattox. In this capacity, she is a member of the Investment Committee responsible for identifying and evaluating managers as well as managing portfolios.
Prior to co-founding Appomattox, she was Head of First Atlas Capital, Inc., the SEC Registered Advisor of Atlas Capital, a multi-billion dollar global fund of hedge funds manager. She was a member of the Global Investment Committee and launched, with Weston Capital, the Weston Atlas Manager Seeding Platform.
Ms. Webb’s career in finance spans over 30 years where she developed an expertise in trading, financing, and structuring derivatives. Ms. Webb began her career at Irving Trust in 1984 where she completed the credit analyst program and worked in loan work outs. She left after 2 years and joined trading desks for five years each at Citibank, Paribas Capital Markets and CIBC. While there she either joined, or set up and ran, derivative trading groups including interest rate, currency, equity, credit and hedge fund structuring. In 2000, she joined Caisse des Depots as a Managing Director and established their credit derivative and synthetic CLO and hedge fund structuring business in the US. She has 17 years direct experience managing diversified multi-asset portfolios.
Susan Webb is a board member for GTI Capital Group, and investment firm focused on opportunities in India. Ms. Webb is on the board of High Water Women, a non-profit foundation that encourages financial education of women and youth. She is also on the advisory board of Catalyst Financial Partners, a group that promotes small and emerging managers in the financial industry. Susan is an Elder, and a former head of stewardship at the Brick Church.
She received a BA from the University of Virginia and an MBA from the Darden School at the University of Virginia.
Alifia Doriwala
RockCreek Group
Alifia Doriwala
RockCreek Group
Alifia Doriwala is a Partner and Co-Chief Investment Officer at RockCreek focused on OCIO solutions. As a member of the Investment Committee, she is involved in portfolio management, asset allocation and investment decisions across alternative and traditional asset classes. An active investor, she sources directs, and manages relationships with top-quartile public and private investments on behalf of endowments, foundations, and pension funds. Ms. Doriwala works closely with the Investment Committee and Boards of Institutions in managing their investment portfolios and with many as their Outsourced Chief Investment Officer. Building on a life-long interest in advancing mission-oriented work, Ms. Doriwala integrates impact opportunities in certain portfolios.
Prior to joining RockCreek, Ms. Doriwala was an Equity Arbitrage Trader at Wolverine Trading, L.P., where she was responsible for sourcing, analyzing and modeling equity linked trades together with equity options. Ms. Doriwala started her career as an Investment Banking Analyst at Merrill Lynch and member of the Financial Sponsor Group assessing the suitability of potential targets for private equity portfolio companies.
Ms. Doriwala graduated from Georgetown University magna cum laude with a B.A. in Economics and English and holds an M.B.A. in Finance and Marketing from New York University’s Stern School of Business. She is a board member of the Georgetown University Global Business Initiative Advisory Board and a former Trustee and Chair of the Investment Committee at The Langley School. She is also a board member for the Teach for America-DC Region, board member and investment committee member of Maret School and WETA as well as a member of the Global Advisory Council for Beyond the Billion. She supports various non-profit organizations focused on education and women’s initiatives. Ms. Doriwala contributed to the RockCreek IFC research study entitled “Moving Toward Gender Balance in Private Equity.”
Pete Keliuotis, CFA
Callan
Pete Keliuotis, CFA
Callan
Pete Keliuotis, CFA, is an Executive Vice President and the head of Callan’s Alternatives Consulting Group, which includes the private equity and hedge fund consulting teams. In addition to leading these teams, he performs research and advises clients’ alternatives investment portfolios. Pete is a member of Callan's Alternatives Review and Management Committees.
Previously, he was a senior managing director of Cliffwater LLC and a senior member of their portfolio advisory team, specializing in alternatives market investing for institutional clients. Prior to joining Cliffwater, Pete was a managing director and the CEO of Strategic Investment Solutions (SIS), where he led the general and private markets consulting teams and advised several large institutional investors. Previous experience includes Mercer Investment Consulting, where Pete was a principal and senior consultant, Hotchkis and Wiley in Los Angeles and Northern Trust Company in Chicago.
Pete earned a BS in economics from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, his MBA in analytic finance from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, and he is a holder of the right to use the Chartered Financial Analyst® designation.
Episode 8: What are the Best Hedge Fund Strategies to Protect Capital During a Market Sell Off?
June 2020
Chris Walvoord
Aon
Chris Walvoord
Aon
Chris leads Aon Hewitt’s Global Liquid Alternatives Team within Global Investment Management. He oversees research and investment activities across a variety of liquid alternative strategies including hedge funds, currencies, CTAs, and GTAA. His group is responsible for researching, recommending and monitoring managers for both advisory and delegated client portfolios.
Prior to joining AHIC in 2016, Chris was a portfolio manager and a member of the investment committee at William Blair. Chris was the lead PM for the custom hedge fund business at Blair which managed client specific portfolios for large institutional clients. He was also the lead PM on the group’s 40 Act fund of hedge funds. Chris worked extensively with William Blair’s distribution team to help clients understand the role of hedge funds within their investment portfolios.
William Blair entered the fund of hedge funds business by acquiring Guidance Capital, a fund of hedge funds firm founded in 2001, where Chris was one of five equity partners. As a member of the investment committee at Guidance, he was involved in both hedge fund research and portfolio construction. He also developed the portfolio risk management system that was used at both Guidance and William Blair.
Prior to joining Guidance Capital, Chris managed an unconstrained bond strategy at the Northern Trust. The mandates for these funds allowed investments in a wide range of fixed income instruments including corporate and asset backed bonds, swaps, options, futures, and other interest rate and credit derivatives. Chris began his investment career in the Capital Markets Strategies Group at Nuveen, where he assisted investment banking clients with their derivative transactions. Prior to Nuveen, Chris worked as an automotive engineer in Motorola’s Automotive Electronics Group and in Ford’s Advanced Vehicle Engineering Group.
Chris earned an M.B.A. degree in finance from The University of Chicago Booth School of Business, an M.S in Mechanical Engineering from the University of California Berkeley and a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Illinois.
Robert Christian
K2 Advisors
Robert Christian
K2 Advisors
Robert Christian is a senior managing director, co-head of the Investment Research & Management (IRM) team, K2 Investment Committee member, and K2 Management Committee member. He joined K2 Advisors in May 2010.
From 1990 to 1995, Mr. Christian worked as a global strategist and proprietary trader at Chase Manhattan Futures Corporation. In 1995, he founded Modoc Capital focusing on short-term futures trading. In 1997, Modoc entered into a joint venture with Stonebrook Capital Management LLC as a portfolio manager and researcher. From 1998 to 2003 Mr. Christian worked at Graham Capital Management LP as a portfolio manager and researcher of quantitative based trading strategies. From 2003 to 2005 he was the Head of Marco Strategies at Julius Baer Investment Management. From September 2005 to March 2010 he worked at FRM Americas LLC where he was the Global Head of Directional Trading Strategies and Portfolio advisor to numerous funds, including the award winning FRM Sigma.
Mr. Christian holds a B.A.S. in biology and economics from Stanford University (1985) and an M.B.A. in finance from Leonard N. Stern School of Business - New York University (1990).
Alex Chung
CommonSpirit Health
Alex Chung
CommonSpirit Health
Alex is generalist on the CommonSpirit Health investment team focusing on hedge funds and public equities. Alex joined Dignity Health in 2018 from Goldman Sachs Asset Management (GSAM) where he was a member of the Quantitative Investment Strategies (QIS) team. Alex was a portfolio manager for multi-asset alternative strategies including hedge fund replication and alternative risk premia. Alex earned a B.S. from MIT in Computer Science and Masters in Computational Finance from Carnegie Mellon.
Cedric Fan
Russell Investments
Cedric Fan
Russell Investments
Based in New York, Cedric Fan is the lead portfolio manager for Russell Investments’ hedge fund team. In this role, Cedric directly manages or oversees all multi-strategy and single-strategy hedge fund portfolios. Cedric also oversees the global hedge fund research team, which is composed of analysts in New York, Seattle, and London. The research team establishes and maintains ranks on all hedge fund products that are used in portfolios.
Prior to joining Russell Investments in 2004, Cedric worked at Bear Stearns in its risk management group. When he left Bear, he was serving as its first dedicated fixed income prime brokerage risk manager. Cedric began his career at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
B.S. (with distinction), Economics, University of Wisconsin-Madison M.A., Economics, New York University.
Joe Tolen
Cambridge Associates
Joe Tolen
Cambridge Associates
Joe Tolen is a Senior Investment Director of Credit Strategies based at the London offices of Cambridge Associates.
Prior to joining Cambridge Associates in 2023, Joe was Director of Multi-Asset Strategies for the Indiana Public Retirement System (“INPRS”) for four years. In his role Joe was responsible for the formulation and implementation of the Absolute Return and Risk Parity portfolios (~$11.5bn of Defined Benefit assets). Within Absolute Return, Joe focused on allocations to Insurance Linked, Fixed Income Relative Value, Global Macro, Event Driven, Structured Credit, CTA, Multi-Strategy, Co-Investments, and Fund of Fund strategies. The Risk Parity portfolio was made up of direct manager allocations as well as an internal custom index. Before his role at INPRS, Joe worked on the Equity Derivatives Sales Trading desk for Morgan Stanley in London. In this role, Joe served as sales coverage for North American-based clients trading European options, futures, swaps, and exotics.
Joe holds a Bachelor of Science in Finance and Entrepreneurship from Indiana University and is a CAIA Charterholder.
Episode 7: Long Short Equity, Where are the Opportunities and What Makes a Great Manager?
June 2020
Marcus Frampton, CFA, CAIA, FRM
Alaska Permanent Fund Corporation
Marcus Frampton, CFA, CAIA, FRM
Alaska Permanent Fund Corporation
Marcus Frampton serves as the Chief Investment Officer for the Alaska Permanent Fund.
He joined APFC in September of 2012 and has served as the Director of Investments, Real Assets & Absolute Return. Prior to joining the APFC, Marcus held diverse roles ranging from investment banking (Lehman Brothers), private equity (PCG Capital Partners), and acted as an executive of a private equity backed portfolio company (LPL Financial).
Mr. Frampton holds a BA in Business-Economics with a minor in Accounting from UCLA.
Shoaib Khan, CFA, CPA
Florida State Board of Administration
Shoaib Khan, CFA, CPA
Florida State Board of Administration
Shoaib is a Senior Portfolio Manager within the Strategic Investments Group at Florida State Board of Administration. Previously, he was with Axlewood Asset Management, a family office. Prior to Axlewood, Shoaib was with Union Bancaire Privee, a Switzerland-based private bank, initially serving as Senior Portfolio Manager and subsequently as Global Head of Portfolio Management. Shoaib has also served as a Strategy Head at J.P. Morgan Alternative Asset Management based in New York. Shoaib graduated with a Bachelors of Business Administration from Florida International University and Masters of Accounting from Nova Southeastern University. He is a CFA charter holder and a CPA.
Julie Lauer Wurster
Albourne America
Julie Lauer Wurster
Albourne America
Julie Lauer Wurster is a Partner and Senior Analyst at Albourne America. Julie joined Albourne in 2007 and is responsible for the global long short equity strategy. Prior to joining Albourne, Julie was an analyst in the Absolute Return Strategy Group at General Motors Asset Management from 2003 to 2007. In this role Julie focused her time on the long/short equity managers. Julie also has related experience with Ford Motor Company and consulting experience with Deloitte & Touche. Julie earned a Master of Business Administration from Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business in 2003 and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Economics from Duke University in 1998.
Bill C. Li, CFA, CAIA
MassPRIM
Bill C. Li, CFA, CAIA
MassPRIM
Bill C. Li is Director of Portfolio Completion Strategies at Massachusetts Pension Reserves Investment Management Board (MassPRIM), the USD 70 billion Massachusetts public pension plan. At MassPRIM, he is responsible for completion strategies investing and oversees approximately $10 billion in investments. Prior to this, he was a Senior Researcher at CoStar Portfolio Strategy in Boston and a Portfolio Analyst at Allianz SE in Frankfurt, Germany. Bill is also a Qualified Futures Practitioner in China. Bill graduated from Brandeis University with a master’s Degree in Economics and Finance and holds the CFA charter and the CAIA charter.
Episode 6: Dislocations in the Credit Markets, How Can Investors take Advantage?
May 2020
David A. Morehead, CFA
Baylor University
David A. Morehead, CFA
Baylor University
David A. Morehead is the Chief Investment Officer in the Baylor University Office of Investments. He previously was a senior portfolio manager at Lotsoff Capital Management, where he managed securities across the corporate capital structure, and a partner at Highview Capital Management, where he focused on public and private energy investments. Prior to this, he was a portfolio manager at Ritchie Capital Management, responsible for a generalist corporate relative value and distressed portfolio. Prior to this, he was responsible for equity research on the transportation/logistics and specialty retail sectors at William Blair & Company. Mr. Morehead also held roles at Bank of America, where he was responsible for the risk management of the bank’s interest rate derivatives desk, and First Trust Advisors, where he advised community banks on their investment portfolios. Mr. Morehead graduated summa cum laude from Wheaton College and earned his MBA in finance and entrepreneurship with honors from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. Mr. Morehead also holds the Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) designation.
Craig Bergstrom
Corbin Capital
Craig Bergstrom
Corbin Capital
Craig leads investment research and portfolio management and has responsibility for investment process and results across Corbin. He also has direct investment research responsibilities for Corbin's investments in credit and relative value strategies, including portfolio management for our credit opportunity program, direct and co-investments and our hedge overlay program. Craig is a member of the Investment Committee, the Private Investment Committee, the Valuation Committee and the Hedging and Allocation Committee. Prior to joining Corbin in January 2002, Craig was the Risk Manager at Grantham Mayo Van Otterloo & Co. LLC, a then $20+ billion institutional investment management firm, where he had responsibilities for firm wide market risk management, hedge fund product development and derivatives strategy. Prior to joining GMO, he was a Vice President in the Equity Derivatives group at Salomon Smith Barney, and previously worked in the Equity Structured Products group at Morgan Stanley. Craig graduated from Dartmouth College with a B.A. in Government, and he was awarded the CFA charter in 1997.
R. Brent Mattis, CFA
Cleveland Clinic
R. Brent Mattis, CFA
Cleveland Clinic
R. Brent Mattis joined the Cleveland Clinic in 2017 where his responsibilities include manager due-diligence, idea generation, and market research. During his tenure at the Cleveland Clinic, he has underwritten managers across asset classes including distressed credit, special situations, structured credit, real assets, liquid alternatives and other complex niches. Prior to joining the Cleveland Clinic, he was Senior Analyst at the Rainin Group, a New York City-based single family office where he spent six years sourcing, underwriting, and executing investments in alternative asset managers, private direct investments, and individual public equities. Earlier in his career, he performed equity research for KVO Capital Management in Hanover, New Hampshire. Brent began his career as a Research Associate in the drug discovery group of Rigel Pharmaceuticals. He is a CFA Charterholder, received an MBA with Distinction from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth and a BS in Chemistry from UC-Berkeley
Dulari Pancholi
NEPC
Dulari Pancholi
NEPC
Dulari’s investment career began in 2000 and she joined NEPC in 2006. Dulari leads NEPC’s hedge fund research and due diligence activities, in addition to providing consulting services for the non-traditional asset classes of NEPC’s various clients. Dulari is the Co-Head of NEPC’s Credit Beta Group which consolidates fixed income research efforts across all asset classes. She is also the Co-Head of NEPC’s Impact Investing Committee. Dulari is also frequent speaker at industry conferences on the topics of fixed income and Impact Investing.
Prior to joining NEPC in August of 2006, Dulari was Vice President of Operations of the Hedge Fund at Venus Capital Management. As Vice President, Dulari was independently responsible for all of the investment operations activity for two funds under management. Prior to that, Dulari was employed as a Research Associate at the Center for International Securities and Derivatives Market (CISDM). As a Research Associate, Dulari's responsibilities included understanding various databases, statistical models, software and analytical tools used for efficient financial analysis. While at CISDM, Dulari authored and co-authored several research papers, one of which was published in the Journal of Alternative Investments in the Spring of 2004. Prior to CISDM, she worked for Kotak Mahindra Asset Management Company in Mumbai, India. Her responsibilities included auditing cash flows and summarizing fund movements for fund managers.
Dulari received her M.B.A. from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst and holds L.L.B. and B.S. degrees from the University of Mumbai. Dulari has attained both of the Chartered Financial Analyst and Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst designations. She is also a member of the Boston Security Analysts Society.
Episode 5: Are Commodity Trading Advisors (CTAs) Additive For a Diversified Hedge Fund Portfolio?
April 2020
Chris Solarz, CFA, CPA, CAIA
Cliffwater
Chris Solarz, CFA, CPA, CAIA
Cliffwater
Chris is a Managing Director of Cliffwater LLC in our New York office and a member of the hedge fund research team. Prior to joining Cliffwater in 2011, Chris was a Senior Analyst at SAIL Advisors, where he focused on manager selection and due diligence as Head of Research for tactical trading and relative value strategies. Previous experience includes working for ING Investment Management, Antarctica Asset Management, Societe Generale Barr Devlin, and CIBC World Markets.
He earned a BA in Economics and Anthropology from the University of Pennsylvania and a MComm in Finance from the University of New South Wales, where he was a Federation Scholar. Chris is a Certified Public Accountant, holds the Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst® designation, the Chartered Financial Analyst® designation, and is a member of the New York Society of Security Analysts. Chris has broken 6 Guinness World Records, has run marathons on all 7 continents and in all 50 US states.
Steven Wilson, CAIA
Teacher Retirement System of Texas
Steven Wilson, CAIA
Teacher Retirement System of Texas
Steven Wilson is a Director in the Public Markets group at the Teacher Retirement System of Texas, a $190 billion pension system serving 1.9 million active and retired educators and their families. Mr. Wilson is responsible for the $10B Stable Value Hedge Fund Portfolio, which includes allocations to Equity Market Neutral, Macro, Managed Futures, Platform, Credit and Reinsurance Hedge Funds. He is also responsible for the $7B World Equity Portfolio, which includes Beta One strategies benchmarked to global equity indices.
Prior to joining TRS, Mr. Wilson was an Investment Director at Ameriprise Private Wealth Advisors, where he oversaw fund selection for $250 million of client assets.
Mr. Wilson received an MBA from the Rice University Jones School of Business in 2012, is a graduate of the University of Texas at Austin McCombs School of Business in 2006, and holds the CAIA designation.
Derek Drummond, CAIA
State of Wisconsin Investment Board
Derek Drummond, CAIA
State of Wisconsin Investment Board
Derek Drummond, CAIA, is the Portfolio Manager for the Funds Alpha team at the State of Wisconsin Investment Board (SWIB). The Funds Alpha team overseeing approximately $20B in assets. Derek and his team are responsible for the sourcing, evaluation and implementation of external investment managers across both traditional and alternative investment strategies. Derek has over 19 years of experience developing and implementing investment structures for both asset owners and managers, including developing portfolio construction, analytics and risk management frameworks, and establishing manager due diligence and evaluation processes.
Brian Payne, CFA, CAIA
Teachers’ Retirement System of Illinois
Brian Payne, CFA, CAIA
Teachers’ Retirement System of Illinois
Brian Payne started his career at Fortigent, a DC-based OCIO for RIAs, focusing on alternative investment due diligence, capital market research and model portfolio management. Following his time on the investment consulting side, Brian joined the buy side as a trader and researcher for Potomac River Capital, a discretionary global macro hedge fund. Brian is currently a PM/Senior Analyst for the Teachers’ Retirement System of Illinois where he manages $5bn+ in assets across hedge fund, alternative risk premia and risk parity strategies.
Episode 4: How to Improve the Fund Raising Capability of a Hedge Fund & a Global Perspective on Fund Flows
June 2019
Marlin Naidoo
Deutsche Bank
Marlin Naidoo
Deutsche Bank
Marlin Naidoo is the Global Head of Capital Introduction and Consulting at Deutsche Bank. Marlin joined Deutsche Bank in 2004 in Hong Kong where he was the Head of Capital Introduction for the Asia Pacific region. In 2012 he relocated to the bank’s New York office as Head of Capital Introduction & Consulting in the Americas and was appointed the Global Head of Capital Introduction and Consulting in 2017. Marlin moved to the banks London office in 2018 where he is currently based. Marlin holds a Bachelor of Science summa cum laude in Statistics & Actuarial Science from the University of Natal in South Africa and a post graduate Degree in Advanced Mathematics of Finance from the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa.
Kenny D. King, CFA
JP Morgan
Kenny D. King, CFA
JP Morgan
Kenny D. King, CFA is a Managing Director and the Americas Head of Capital Advisory Group. Kenny manages a team of 15 individuals who seek to introduce institutional investors and third-party vendors to the firm’s hedge fund clients. Prior to assuming this role, Kenny spent three years managing the EMEA Capital Introduction Group in London. Kenny has spent his entire career working with hedge fund managers; his career started as an analyst for Merrill Lynch Investment Managers Alternative Strategies and then he joined Bear Stearns as the Head of Due Diligence for its Structured Funds business. Born and raised in Staten Island, New York, Kenny holds a B.S. in Management from Tulane University and is a CFA Charterholder. Kenny lives in Rumson, NJ, where he enjoys spending time with his wife, daughter and son. In his spare time, Kenny enjoys golfing and reading non-fiction books.
Episode 3: Reinsurance for a Diversified Hedge Fund Portfolio
May 2019
Mark Wilgar
Cambridge Associates
Mark Wilgar
Cambridge Associates
Mark is an Investment Director focused on investment strategy research in Cambridge Associates’ London office. He is a member of the Credit Investment Group, responsible for researching and monitoring strategies that invest in liquid and illiquid debt instruments and other risk-asymmetric assets. The team works to seek out investment ideas and evaluate institutional quality asset managers.
Prior to joining Cambridge Associates in 2014, Mark worked for P-Solve Investments Limited (River and Mercantile Solutions) as a member of the investment team responsible for managing the £6 billion fiduciary management portfolio. Mark has worked in financial services since 2009, having graduated from the University of Warwick with a first class degree in Engineering and Business.
Outside of fund research and investment due diligence, experience includes investment performance analysis, trade planning and execution, transition management, client portfolio management, process improvement and pension liability benchmarking.
Education and Professional Credentials
Investment Management Certificate (IMC)
BSc Engineering and Business, Warwick Business School
Cameron McVie, CFA
Russell Investments
Cameron McVie, CFA
Russell Investments
Cameron McVie is Head of Relative Value strategies in the Investment Division, where he focuses on fixed income, credit, insurance-linked and quantitative equity strategies. Cameron is responsible for researching and recommending investment managers for use by Russell investment funds and consulting clients. He joined Russell in June 2010.
Prior to joining Russell, Cameron was most recently working for Logic 20/20, a Seattle-based consulting firm where he provided credit risk and financial analysis to technology companies. From 2005 to 2008, Cameron was a Director at BlackRock Alternative Advisors and at Quellos Capital Management (prior to their acquisition by BlackRock). He was responsible for hedge fund manager research, portfolio management and due diligence within the Absolute Return Strategies group, with a focus on fixed income and credit strategies.
Prior to Quellos, Cameron spent four years in London at GAM UK Ltd, and then at NewFinance Capital Partners, as an investment analyst focusing on fixed income arbitrage and macro hedge fund manager research. He began his career in Australia at Suncorp Metway Ltd, where he undertook external manager research for the wealth management division.
Steven Wilson, CAIA
Teacher Retirement System of Texas
Steven Wilson, CAIA
Teacher Retirement System of Texas
Steven Wilson is a Director in the Public Markets group at the Teacher Retirement System of Texas, a $190 billion pension system serving 1.9 million active and retired educators and their families. Mr. Wilson is responsible for the $10B Stable Value Hedge Fund Portfolio, which includes allocations to Equity Market Neutral, Macro, Managed Futures, Platform, Credit and Reinsurance Hedge Funds. He is also responsible for the $7B World Equity Portfolio, which includes Beta One strategies benchmarked to global equity indices.
Prior to joining TRS, Mr. Wilson was an Investment Director at Ameriprise Private Wealth Advisors, where he oversaw fund selection for $250 million of client assets.
Mr. Wilson received an MBA from the Rice University Jones School of Business in 2012, is a graduate of the University of Texas at Austin McCombs School of Business in 2006, and holds the CAIA designation.
Episode 2: Opportunities in Emerging Market Hedge Funds
April 2019
Guilherme Ribeiro do Valle, CFA
ABS Investment Management
Guilherme Ribeiro do Valle, CFA
ABS Investment Management
Guilherme Ribeiro do Valle, CFA is a managing member and portfolio manager at ABS Investment Management in Greenwich, CT. Mr. Valle leads the firm’s effort on the allocations to investment managers in emerging markets. Mr. Valle has been active following and allocating resources in emerging markets for over 20 years. Currently ABS manages over USD 5.5 billion, mostly on behalf of pension funds, endowments, foundations and other type of investors, predominantly from the US and Europe. Before co-founding ABS in late 2002, Mr. Valle was a Director at Credit Suisse Asset Management, a firm he joined in 1998 when Credit Suisse Group acquired Banco de Investimentos Garantia, the Brazilian investment bank where Mr. Valle started his financial career in 1993. Mr. Valle has a degree in Business Administration from Fundação Getúlio Vargas in São Paulo and is a CFA charterholder.
Christian Frei, CFA
Lazard Asset Management
Christian Frei, CFA
Lazard Asset Management
Christian Frei is a Portfolio Manager/Analyst on the Lazard Alternative Emerging Markets investment team and a member of the Alternative Emerging Markets Investment Committee. He is responsible for identifying Emerging Market and Frontier market specialist managers employing both alternative and traditional investment strategies to capture market inefficiencies and uncorrelated return streams across a range of asset classes and strategies. He began working in financial services in 1984 at Morgan Guaranty Trust Company in London in debt restructuring. From 1987 to 1989, Christian moved to JP Morgan Investment Management (JPMIM) in London as a buy-side research analyst. In 1989, he became the Head of JPMIM’s Singapore office, where he was responsible for managing Asia ex-Japan portfolios. In 1994, he became the deputy Managing Director JP Morgan’s Indian mutual fund joint venture, ICICI Asset Management. In 1996, Christian helped establish JP Morgan’s asset management joint venture in Korea, Samsung JP Morgan Investment Trust Management. He relocated to Seoul as Chief Investment Office and JP Morgan board member. In late 1997, Christian returned to New York as a portfolio manager in JPMIM’s Global Emerging Markets Group until late 1998 when he became Chief Investment Officer of JPMIM’s Hedge Fund Group. He joined Lazard Asset Management in 2001 as a co-founder of Lazard’s multi-manager hedge fund investment business. Christian is a BSc (Eng) in Biochemical Engineering from University College, London.
Chris Ayton
Alternative Investment Group
Chris Ayton
Alternative Investment Group
Chris Ayton is a Partner and Portfolio Manager of Alternative Investments International, L.P. and Berens Global Value Fund. He joined Alternative Investment Group in March 2008 and is based in London. He has more than 20 years of manager research experience and focuses on identifying and evaluating long-only and long/short strategies and managers, especially in Emerging and Frontier Markets, Asia and Europe. Previously, Chris was a senior member of the investment team at leading investment consulting firm Stamford Associates Limited where he spent 12 years, over half of which was as the firm’s Head of Manager Research. While this position provided exposure to many investment strategies and geographies, Chris specialized throughout his tenure in managers investing in Asian markets, including Japan. Chris was also instrumental in establishing Stamford Associates’ manager research disciplines that were adopted across the firm. Prior to joining Stamford Associates in 1995, Chris worked at Bacon & Woodrow. Chris graduated in 1994 with a BSc. in Economics from University of Southampton
Erik Welle
Optima Fund Management
Erik Welle
Optima Fund Management
Mr. Welle joined Optima in 2007 and currently serves as the firm’s International sector head with responsibility for manager allocations across Europe, Canada and global emerging markets with an emphasis on hedged equity and global macro allocations. Further, Mr. Welle is a member of the firm’s portfolio management committee. Prior to joining Optima, Mr. Welle was an equity analyst at Thompson, Siegel & Walmsley, a $19 billion investment management firm located in Richmond, Virginia. There he was a member of the energy and industrials group and responsible for both fundamental and quantitative analysis. Mr. Welle is a graduate of Washington and Lee University where he received a B.S. in Business Administration.
Episode 1: Employees Retirement System of Texas Emerging Hedge Fund Managers Program
March 2019
Jeff Willardson, CFA, CQF
PAAMCO Launchpad
Jeff Willardson, CFA, CQF
PAAMCO Launchpad
Jeff Willardson CFA, CQF is a Managing Director and Co-Managing Partner of the Firm’s Irvine office. He is currently Head of Investments for PAAMCO Launchpad, the firm’s early-stage manager seeding platform. Jeff is also the Portfolio Manager for several of the firm’s institutional custom hedge fund solutions. Throughout his career at PAAMCO Prisma, he has conducted research, due diligence and risk monitoring for managers across all PAAMCO strategies with an emphasis on credit strategies, emerging markets, and real estate. Prior to joining PAAMCO in 2007, Jeff spent five years at Goldman, Sachs & Co. in the Investment Management Division. He received his MBA (Dual Finance and Real Estate Major) from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, and he holds a BS in Management (Finance Major) from Brigham Young University.
Panayiotis Lambropoulos
Employees Retirement System of Texas
Panayiotis Lambropoulos
Employees Retirement System of Texas
Panayiotis Lambropoulos CFA, CAIA, FRM is a Portfolio Manager at the Employees Retirement System of Texas – a $38 billion retirement plan – located in Austin, Texas. His responsibilities include sourcing, analyzing and evaluating potential third party managers deploying all types of alternative investment strategies. His primary focus is on the Trust’s Absolute Return Portfolio along with opportunistic investments in Emerging Managers. Panayiotis holds a B.S in Business Administration with a concentration in Finance and Marketing from Boston College, and an M.B.A in General Management from Northwestern University. Panayiotis is also a CFA, CAIA and FRM Charterholder.