Our Senior Advisory Board consists of highly respected institutional professionals who have distinguished themselves over the course of their long careers in asset management. We greatly appreciate all their support and cherish their valuable input as we pursue our goal of excellence.
Jerome Baesel, Ph.D., CIO and Managing Director (Retired)
Jerry was a Managing Director of Morgan Stanley AIP and Chief Investment Officer, liquid markets. Prior to formation of Morgan Stanley AIP, he served nine years with the Weyerhaeuser Pension Fund Investment Group as Managing Director. Before Weyerhaeuser, he was a general partner at Princeton Newport Partners, a fund focusing on quantitative arbitrage strategies. Jerry has also served as tenured Professor of Finance at the University of California at Irvine. He holds a B.S. in Economics from California State University at Fullerton and both a M.S. and Ph.D. in Finance with a focus on investments from UCLA.
Ernest P. Chan, Ph.D., Quantitative Strategist of E.P. Chan & Associates
Dr. Ernest P. Chan is an expert in the research and development of statistical models and software for trading stocks and futures. Dr. Chan’s career since 1994 has been focusing on the development of statistical models and advanced computer algorithms to find patterns and trends in large quantities of data. He has applied his expertise in statistical pattern recognition to projects ranging from textual retrieval at IBM Research, mining customer relationship data at Morgan Stanley, and statistical arbitrage trading strategy research at Credit Suisse First Boston, Mapleridge Capital Management, Millennium Partners, and MANE Fund Management. Dr. Chan holds a Bachelor of Science degree from University of Toronto in 1988, graduating with High Distinction and receiving the Lieutenant Governor’s Gold Medal. He also holds a Master of Science (1991) and a Doctor of Philosophy (1994) degree in Theoretical Physics from Cornell University. In recognition of his expertise in statistical data mining, he was invited to serve on the Program Committees of the International Conference of Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining in 1998 and also of the SPIE Conference on Data Mining and Knowledge Discovery in 1999.
Eric S. Hirschberg, CEO of Orion Investment Management
Mr. Hirschberg began his Wall Street career as a quantitative trader and strategy developer in the Merrill Lynch Global Proprietary Arbitrage Group. Subsequently, he was Director in Fuji International Finance’s Technical Trading Group where he was responsible for the firm’s global statistical and index arbitrage books. He was Managing Director of Ross Capital Market’s global statistical arbitrage group, Co-Founder and CEO of Foundation Capital Strategies. He is currently CEO of Orion Investment Management; a Bermuda based fixed income manager specializing in portable alpha and risk mitigation. He has published on Risk Based Compensation Theory and Performance Measurement, Dynamic Tactical Asset Allocation, and Portable Alpha Measurement. Mr. Hirschberg holds a B.A. with a concentration in Neuroscience from the University of Delaware, where he was a White Science Fellow, and MSc. in Statistics & Operations Research from New York University’s Stern School of Business.
Zura Kakushadze, Ph.D., President of Quantigic Solutions LLC
Dr. Zura Kakushadze earned his Ph.D. in Theoretical Physics from Cornell University, was a Postdoctoral Fellow at Harvard University, and an Assistant Professor at the Institute for Theoretical Physics at Stony Brook University. After a successful academic career, Dr. Kakushadze ventured into quantitative finance first as a consultant at Automated Trading Desk (intraday strategies), and then as Associate/VP/Director at RBC Capital Markets Corporation (statistical arbitrage, index arbitrage, executions) and Managing Director at WorldQuant, LLC (high frequency trading system for statistical arbitrage). In early 2008, Dr. Kakushadze ventured into the entrepreneurial realm, was Executive Vice President and shareholder of Revere Data, LLC and currently is President and shareholder of Quantigic Solutions LLC and Vynance Technologies, LLC. Quantigic offers their proprietary and fully customizable Quantigic Risk Model complete with source code and executable desktop solutions. Vynance develops innovative market visualization and other cutting edge technologies. Dr. Kakushadze has over 11 years of experience in quantitative finance, has published 78 scientific papers (string theory, phenomenology and other areas of theoretical physics), supervised numerous Ph.D. students and received various honors/awards, including Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Fellowship (2001).
Jason Papastavrou, Ph.D., CIO of ARIS and Risk Advisor of Empiric Asset Management, LLC
Dr. Papastavrou’s Empiric responsibilities include taking part in the daily portfolio review, research, risk management, and model development. Dr. Papastavrou is the founder and currently serves as the CIO of ARIS Capital Management, a multi-strategy fund of hedge funds based in New York. Prior to ARIS, he founded the Fund of Hedge Funds Strategies Group at Banc of America Capital Management. From 1999 through 2001, Jason was a Senior Portfolio manager for Deutsche Asset Management. From 1997 to 1999, he was the Portfolio Manager for a Swiss family office. He began his Professional career as a Professor of Industrial Engineering at Purdue University from 1990 to 1999. Jason received tenure as well as numerous teaching and research awards. His research focus was decision making under uncertainty. He has published over twenty reviewed papers in academic journals. Dr. Papastavrou earned a Ph.D. & Masters Degree in Electrical Engineering and a Bachelor’s Degree in Mathematics, all from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Judith Posnikoff, Ph.D., Managing Director and a Founding Partner of PAAMCO
Dr. Posnikoff, Ph.D. is a Managing Director and a Founding Partner of Pacific Alternative Asset Management Company, LLC (PAAMCO), a leading provider of hedge fund portfolios to sophisticated global institutional investors. She is responsible for the evaluation and management of equity market neutral hedge funds in the various PAAMCO portfolios. As a member of the Investment Management Committee, she is involved in all stages of the investment process and specifically focuses on the complex customized portfolios of the firm’s Asia/Pacific institutional accounts. She has worked extensively with Asian pension plans on hedge fund investments. Dr. Posnikoff is additionally a member of the Account Management Committee.
Charles (Chuck) Stucke, CIO of Guggenheim Investment Advisors
Mr. Stucke is the Chief Investment Officer of Guggenheim Investment Advisors. In this role he chairs the Guggenheim Investment Advisors Investment Committee and leads the Portfolio Management Group. Prior to joining Guggenheim in 2006, Mr. Stucke served as an Executive Director on the Portable Alpha Team at Morgan Stanley Alternative Investment Partners (Morgan Stanley AIP) where he opened and managed the firm’s London-based European alternative investments research office. Mr. Stucke has worked in the alternative investments, private equity, mezzanine, structured debt (public and private, taxable and tax-exempt) and interest rate derivative markets in London, Philadelphia, New York, Berlin and St. Louis. He holds an A.B. and an M.B.A. (first in class) from the University of Missouri. He also holds a Master’s in International Affairs from Columbia University as well as the Chartered Financial Analyst designation.