Browsing: Who’s Who

By Bill Kelly, CEO, CAIA Association While Harvard the institution is legendary, much less is known about its founding other than by some who have taken those tedious Cambridge tours or the gifted alum who studied their way in through one of those 25 famous gates. Harvard College was foundedRead More

By Charles Skorina We recently looked at the number of women CIOs at big endowments*. Among 109 North American endowments over $1 billion we identified twenty (18 plus one director of investments and one CFO who liaises with their OCIO providers). That’s just 18%–less than one out of five. ForRead More

By Bill Kelly, CEO, CAIA Association According to the Bible’s Book of Genesis 2:2, on the seventh day God rested after having created all the heavens and earth. Jack Bogle was on the eve of his tenth decade on this earth and he must have skipped both that chapter and verse. In fact, Jack was more of a Matthew 21:12 kind of guy. The one who comes into a templeRead More

By Charles Skorina The $90 billion Oregon Pension ranks among the top 15 in the US, but how many in the industry know the current board chair, Ms. Rukaiyah Adams? Ms. Adams was born in Berkeley, CA, grew up in diverse, northeast Portland, and returned to her home city afterRead More

By Charles Skorina This letter looks at the most recent five-year performance of over one hundred of the world’s best institutional investors. Endowment chief investment officers have an infinite investment horizon, a global playing field, and can invest in anything anywhere – within the broad policy limits set by theirRead More

By Charles Skorina As all the world now knows, Harvard has selected Columbia’s Nirmal P. “Narv” Narvekar as the new head of Harvard Management Company. His name had been bandied about as a prime candidate for weeks.  We discussed it ourselves in our Aug. 29 newsletter. Reportedly, a few big-endowment CIOsRead More

Prominent alpha seeker Kyle Bass is named in the March 29 Wall Street Journal with a headline and lead paragraph that suggest that he was the man who set in motion the avalanche that brought down Bear Stearns in the spring of 2008. The truth, as one discerns only fromRead More

By Charles Skorina   Michigan State University announced the appointment of Philip Zecher as Chief Investment Officer on Friday, December 18th, 2015. Philip Zecher has just been appointed MSU’s first-ever chief investment officer, reporting directly to Dr. Lou Anna K. Simon, MSU’s president. The trustees announced the appointment on Friday and PhilRead More

Two things happened almost at once recently: Wired told us who actually invented bitcoin, (well, it gave the world the latest hot theory), and officials in Australia raided that same fellow’s home in re a tax investigation. More specifically on the first of those points, Wired (and soon thereafter Gizmodo)Read More

CLVS fell nearly 70% on adverse news from the FDA. The tricky call for investors is whether the drop was (a) just enough, (b) not yet enough, or (c) perhaps too much to discount this blow. Two savvy analysts have recently expressed sharply opposed views on this.Read More

Clifford Asness Co-founder, AQR Capital.  Was Managing Director and Director of Quantitative Research for the Asset Management Division at Goldman Sachs.  Ph.D. in Finance from the University of Chicago. Eugene Fama’s student and teaching assistant. Applied Quantitative Research Bio (AQR Capital) Research (SSRN)

Peter Bernstein Although technically an investment practitioner, Bernstein’s significant contribution to the field of investing takes the form of his two chronicles of modern finance: Capital Ideas and the recently released Capital Ideas Evolving.  In these books, he accomplishes the previously unthinkable: 500+ pages of financial history and theory with zero pagesRead More

Angelo Calvello Former Executive VP, North America, Man Investments.  Six years with State Street Global Advisors where he helped build the firm’s portable alpha and hedge fund businesses. Relevant Postings (AllAboutAlpha.com)

Jack Coates Head of Portable Alpha, Managing Director, Portable Alpha Team, Morgan Stanley Alternative Investment Partners.  Former head of pension plan for Weyerhaeuser. Morgan Stanley AIP Portable Alpha Relevant Postings (AllAboutAlpha.com)    

Alexander Ineichen Managing Director and Senior Investment Officer at UBS Alternative Investment Solutions. Author of Absolute Returns & Asymmetric Returns.  Board of Directors of the Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst Association (CAIAA). Bio (CAIA) UBS Alternative & Quantitative Investments Asymmetric Returns (2006) Absolute Returns (2002) Relevant Postings (AllAboutAlpha.com)

Lars Jaeger Partner and Head of the alternative beta strategies, Partners Group, Switzerland.  Author of several leading hedge funds publications. Bio (Partners Group) Research (SSRN) Relevant Postings (AllAboutAlpha.com)               

Eric Sorensen President and Chief Executive Officer of PanAgora, and a member of the firm’s Investment and Management Committees.  Prior to joining PanAgora, was the Chief Investment Officer of Structured Equity, and Director of Quantitative Research at Putnam Investments. Bio (PanAgora) PanAgora Interview (Pensions & Investments) Relevant Postings (AllAboutAlpha.com)

Barton Waring Managing director and head of the Client Advisory Group at Barclays Global Investors.  Previously, head of Ibbotson Associates. Bio (Yale Alumni Association) Research (SSRN) Relevant Postings (AllAboutAlpha.com)              

Bill Fung Visiting Research Professor at the Centre for Hedge Fund Research and Education, London Business School. Serves on the board of  financial services companies in Europe and North America and is currently Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Maple Financial Group, Canada. Homepage/Contact Information (LBS) Research (SSRN)Read More

David Hsieh Bank of America Professor of Finance, Fuqua School of Business, Duke University.  Homepage (Duke) Research (SSRN), Research (Duke) Recent Course Syllabus (Duke) Relevant Postings (AllAboutAlpha.com)       

Harry Kat Professor of Risk Management at the Cass Business School at City University, London. Before returning to academia, he was Head of Equity Derivatives Europe at Bank of America in London, Head of Derivatives Structuring and Marketing at First Chicago in Tokyo and Head of Derivatives Research at MeesPiersonRead More

Francois-Serge Lhabitant Associate Professor of Finance at EDHEC Business School, Professor of Finance at the University of Lausanne, and a senior advisor to Kedge Capital Partners Bio/Contact Information (Edhec) Research (SSRN) Interview  (Edhec) Relevant Postings (AllAboutAlpha.com)   

Lionel Martellini Professor of Finance at EDHEC Graduate School of Business (since 2003) and the Scientific Director of Edhec Risk and Asset Management Research Centre.  Former member of the faculty at the Marshall School of Business, University of Southern California. Bio/Contact Information (Edhec) Research (SSRN) Relevant Postings (AlAboutAlpha.com)  

Andrew Lo Harris & Harris Group Professor and director of the Laboratory for Financial Engineering, Sloan School of Business, MIT Laboratory for Financial Engineering (MIT) Research (SSRN) Course Outlines (MIT) Relevant Postings (AllAboutAlpha.com)

Rob Arnott Chairman, Research Affiliates.  Outspoken advocate of Fundamental Indexation. Research Affiliates Bio (Research Affiliates) Fundamental Indexation Relevant Postings (AllAboutAlpha.com)     

Thomas Schneeweis Michael and Cheryl Philipp Professor of Finance, Isenberg School of Management, University of Massachusetts (Amherst).  Homepage (UMass) Contact Information (UMass) Center for International Securities & Derivatives Markets Relevant Postings (AllAboutAlpha.com)  

Narayan Naik Director of BNP Paribas Hedge Fund Centre, London Business School Faculty Profile (LBS) Research (SSRN) Relevant Postings (AllAboutAlpha.com)

Roger Clarke Chairman, Analytic Investors.   Served as a member of the editorial boards of the Journal of Portfolio Management and the Financial Analysts Journal. He also served on the faculty of Brigham Young University for eight years. Analytic Investors Relevant Postings (AllAboutAlpha.com)

Harindra de Silva President, Analytic Investors.  Author of several articles and studies on finance-related topics including stock market anomalies, market volatility and asset valuation. Interview (Pensions & Investments) Analytic Investors Research (SSRN) Relevant Postings (AllAboutAlpha.com)  

Ray Dalio President and Chief Investment Officer of Bridgewater Associates (manages $170 billion, $30 billion+ in its “Pure Alpha” hedge fund strategy). Bridgewater Associates Interview (Derivatives Strategy) Relevant Postings (AllAboutAlpha.com)

Roger Ibbotson Professor in the Practice of Finance, Yale School of Management.  Chairman and CIO of Zebra Capital Management, LLC. Founder, Advisor and former Chairman of Ibbotson Associates, now a Morningstar Company. Has written numerous books and articles including Stocks Bonds Bills and Inflation. Homepage (Yale) Ibbotson Associates (now Morningstar) ResearchRead More

Bruce I. Jacobs Principal, Jacobs Levy Equity Management. R Jacobs Levy Equity Management Bio (Jacobs Levy Equity Management) Research Bibliography (Jacobs Levy Equity Management)

Kenneth N. Levy Principal, Jacobs Levy Equity Management. R Jacobs Levy Equity Management Bio (Jacobs Levy Equity Management) Research Bibliography (Jacobs Levy Equity Management)

Barr Rosenberg Founder, BARRA.  Chairman, AXA Rosenberg Group Bio (Pensions & Investments) AXA Rosenberg Group Relevant Postings (AllAboutAlpha.com)       

Dennis Tito Founder, Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Board of Directors, Wilshire Associates. Wilshire Associates Bio (Wikipedia) Relevant Postings (AllAboutAlpha.com)      

William Sharpe STANCO 25 Professor of Finance, Emeritus, at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business.  One of the originators of the Capital Asset Pricing Model.  Developed the Sharpe Ratio for investment performance analysis. Bio (Wikipedia) Homepage (Personal) Research (SSRN) Nobel Citation (Nobel Foundation) Relevant Postings (AllAboutAlpha.com)

Harry Markowitz Formerly at the RAND Corporation, Markowitz won the Nobel Prize in 1990 while a professor of finance at Baruch College of the City University of New York.  Best known for his pioneering work in modern portfolio theory, studying the effects of asset risk, correlation and diversification on expectedRead More

Michael Jensen Jesse Isidor Straus Professor of Business Administration, Emeritus, Harvard Business School.  Founded the Journal of Financial Economics.  Past President of the American Finance Association. Bio (Wikipedia) Homepage (Harvard) Contact Information (Harvard) Research (SSRN) Relevant Postings (AllAboutAlpha.com)      

Managing Director, Advanced Strategies and Research at Barclays Global Investors. 14 years at BARRA as Director of Research, Executive Vice President, and President; and 20 years on the faculty at the School of Business Administration at the University of California, Berkeley, where he served as the chairman of the finance faculty, chairmanRead More

Kenneth French Carl E. and Catherine M. Heidt Professor of Finance at the Tuck School of Business, Dartmouth College. President Elect of the American Finance Association, a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research, an Advisory Editor of the Journal of Financial Economics. Bio (Wikipedia) Homepage (Personal) ContactRead More

Eugene Fama Robert R. McCormick Distinguished Service Professor of Finance, Graduate School of Business, University of Chicago. Bio (Wikipedia) Homepage (University of Chicago) Research (SSRN) Interview (Fama/French Forum) Relevant Postings (AllAboutAlpha.com)