A. Michael Lipper, CFA, is president of Lipper Advisory Services, Inc., a firm providing money management services for wealthy families, retirement plans and charitable organizations. A former president of the New York Society of Security Analysts, he created the Lipper Growth Fund Index, the first of today’s global array of Lipper Indexes, averages and performance analyses for mutual funds. After selling his company to Reuters in 1998, Lipper has focused his energy on managing the investments of his clients and his family. His first book, Money Wise: How to Create, Grow and Preserve Your Wealth, was published by St. Martin's Press. Lipper’s unique perspectives on world markets and their implications have been posted weekly on his blog since August, 2008.
Aaron Klein is CEO at Riskalyze, a specialized investment portfolio analytics company in California. He can be reached at [email protected].
Alon Bochman, CFA, is a partner in Genpact's (NYSE: G) capital markets consulting practice, based in New York. He works with asset managers and banks to help them make better decisions with data. Previously, he spent two years managing an equity portfolio for SC Fundamental. Bochman began his career as a programmer by co-founding a social networking software firm eventually acquired by Thomson-Reuters. He holds an MBA from Columbia Business School and a BA from the University at Albany.
Brian Langenberg, CFA, is the founder at award-winning industry sector research firm Langenberg & Company that provides research services and subscription products to institutional investors and corporate executives. Reports and subscriptions are available at Langenberg-llc.com
Christopher Pavese, CFA, holds several positions within the Broyhill family offices, serving as chief investment officer at Broyhill Asset Management and BMC Fund, Inc., an SEC-registered investment company. His primary responsibilities include macroeconomic research, strategic asset allocation, portfolio construction, and individual security selection. Previously, Pavese worked as a vice president and portfolio manager at JPMorgan Private Bank, where he managed more than $1 billion in discretionary assets for trusts, endowments, foundations, and high net-worth individuals. He served as an active member of the JPMorgan Private Bank Investment Team as well as the firm's trust and investment committee, where he assisted in the construction of the private bank's model portfolios and monitored the bank's fiduciary relationships. Pavese serves as president of the board for CFA North Carolina. He holds a BS in Finance from Pennsylvania State University.
Colin McLean, FSIP, is founder and CEO at SVM Asset Management, an independent Edinburgh-based fund management group. He is a member of CFA Institute and was elected to the Board of Governors in 2012. McLean is a fellow of the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries and a chartered fellow of the Chartered Institute for Securities & Investment. In 2012, McLean was appointed an honorary professor at Heriot-Watt University, lecturing in behavioral finance. He is a regular contributor to financial publications and has been a guest on Bloomberg TV & Radio, CNBC, BBC TV and Radio. McLean is also a frequent conference speaker on investment, hedge funds and behavioral finance.
Daniel Kim is founder and chief investment officer at Blackcrane Capital, an investment management firm based in Bellevue, Washington. Previously, he was a portfolio manager and partner at Mastholm Asset Management.
David L. Allison, CFA, CIPM, is vice president and founding partner at Allison Investment Management, LLC. He has formal training in investment analysis, portfolio management, and investment performance measuring techniques. Allison has extensive experience managing investment portfolios for high net-worth investors. He is an active member of CFA Institute, the CIPM Association, CFA North Carolina, and the CFA Society of South Carolina, where he is a former president and currently serves on the board of directors. Allison also serves on the Coastal Carolina University Wall College of Business Finance Advisory Board. He holds of degree in finance from the University of North Carolina at Wilmington.
David Schawel, CFA, is a fixed-income portfolio manager in Raleigh, North Carolina, and Durham, North Carolina. Previously, he worked in New York City in both investment banking and equity research.
Druce Vertes, CFA, is the founder of StreetEYE, a social news aggregator for financial market news. He previously worked as an analyst, consultant, and IT manager at several major sell-side firms and hedge funds.
Eben Esterhuizen, CFA, is president and CEO at Contextuall, a data analysis startup in Manhattan.
Eric Petroff, CFA, is the founder of Petroff Institutional, which provides executive-level consulting to money managers, plan sponsors, and those who serve them. He has more than a decade of institutional consulting experience across virtually all client types, having served as a senior consultant and shareholder at Hammond Associates and as a director of research and chief strategist at Wurts & Associates.
Filip Mardjokic, CFA, works at an investment fund in New York where he is member of the strategy and analytics team and sits on the economics and equity committees. He holds a BA in economics and political science from New York University.
Gary C. Sanger is a distinguished professor of finance at Louisiana State University. He received a BSIM degree with honors in economics from Purdue University in 1973 and a Ph.D. in finance from Purdue University in 1980. Dr. Sanger also holds the Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) designation. Prior to joining LSU, he was assistant professor of finance at Ohio State University. At LSU, Dr. Sanger has served as associate dean for academic programs and chair of the department of finance. His research has been published in leading academic journals, including the Journal of Finance, the Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, the Review of Financial Studies, and the Financial Analysts Journal. Dr. Sanger is a member of the American Finance Association, the Financial Management Association, the Society for Financial Studies, and CFA Institute. He is a member and past director of the Southern Finance Association.
Gregg S. Fisher, CFA, is chief investment officer of Gerstein Fisher, an independent investment management and advisory firm that he founded in 1993. Gerstein Fisher’s investment strategies are focused on what has been proven to have a meaningful impact on investor returns: global diversification, smart portfolio structure, proactive tax management, investor behavior, and risk management. Through the Gerstein Fisher Research Center, which he established in 2009, he has partnered with leading academics in the areas of finance, risk engineering and economics to conduct research that has immediate, real-world applicability to the practice of investing. Fisher is a Certified Financial Planner. To read more about him, visit www.gersteinfisher.com.
Gustavo Teruel is a partner at Exxacon, a Spanish-Chilean company that manages investments in real assets for institutions and high net worth individuals since 1998. Apart from earning the CFA Charter, Mr. Teruel completed a M.Sc. in Civil Engineering at the University of Granada and an MBA at IE Business School.

Hadley Chu

3 Posts
Hadley Chu is the Investor Education intern at CFA Institute. She is pursuing a Bachelor's degree in economics at Princeton University.
Hamlin Lovell, CFA, is Contributing Editor for The Hedge Fund Journal, which he has written for since 2010 and he also contributes to the Dow Jones publication EFinancialNews. Until 2013 he was a portfolio manager at IMQubator. Previously, he worked at London-based currency manager Millennium Global Investments as co-manager of a fund of funds. Lovell also carried out hedge fund research for Duration Asset Management and The Capital Partnership. He has also done equity analysis for independent research house Ideaglobal and economic analysis for the UK Government. In addition, Lovell has written blog posts for the AllAboutAlpha thought forum that is owned by the CAIA Association. He has served as a grader for the CFA exams, and he contributes to CAIA curriculum development. Lovell also holds the CAIA (Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst), FRM (Financial Risk Manager) and IMC (Investment Management Certificate) designations. He holds an economics degree from the University of Leicester.

Which Beta is Smart?

Hamlin Lovell, CFA

As new “smart beta” strategies become more popular, how can investors choose among hedge fund beta, alternative beta, liquid alternative beta, exotic beta, smart beta, scientific beta, and the many others that are increasingly available? “Hedge fund beta” is one … Read more

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Howard Marks, CFA, is chairman at Oaktree Capital, an investment firm in Los Angeles, and author of “The Most Important Thing,” a book on his investment philosophy published in 2011.
Jared Woodard is the principal of Condor Options, which publishes options and volatility strategies and research. Jared has been quoted in various media outlets including Bloomberg, The Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, and Reuters. He is the author of Options and the Volatility Risk Premium and Iron Condor Spread Strategies: Timing, Structuring, and Managing Profitable Options Trades, both published by FT Press. He is also an associate member of the National Futures Association and registered principal of Clinamen Financial Group LLC, a commodity trading advisor. He graduated with a Ph.D. in philosophy from Fordham University in 2013.
John Bowman, CFA, is former managing director, Americas, at CFA Institute. He also served as managing director and co-lead of education at CFA Institute. Prior to joining CFA Institute, Bowman was a fund manager and equity analyst for Mellon Growth Advisors and State Street Global Advisors. He holds a BS in business administration from the University of Mary Washington.
Jon Soberg, CFA, is a managing director at Blumberg Capital, a global venture capital firm. His blog can be found here.
Mr. Kroijer (born 1972) is the author of "Money Mavericks - Confessions of a Hedge Fund Manager" (Financial Times Press – 2010 & 2012 - 2nd edition) and “Investing Demystified – How to Invest without Speculation and Sleepless Nights” (Financial Times Press - 2013). Mr. Kroijer currently serves on the Board of Directors of OVS Capital, Linden Grove Capital, Northlight Capital, Steadview Capital, and Maj sinAI (London, Mumbai/Hong Kong, and Copenhagen based hedge funds), and ShipServ Inc. (the leading online platform for shipping supplies with annual sales of appx $4 billion). He has frequently appeared as a finance expert on a broad range of media, including BBC, CNN, CNBC, Bloomberg, NY Times, Forbes, etc. Previously Mr. Kroijer was the CIO of Holte Capital Ltd, a London-based market neutral special situations hedge fund which he founded in 2002 before returning external capital in the spring of 2008. Prior to establishing Holte Capital, Mr. Kroijer served in the London office of HBK Investments focusing on special situations investing and event-driven arbitrage. In addition, he previously worked at SC Fundamental, a value-focused hedge fund based in New York, and the investment banking division of Lazard Frères in New York. While in graduate school Mr. Kroijer held internships with the private equity firm Permira Advisors (then Schroder Ventures) and management consulting firm McKinsey & Co. Mr. Kroijer graduated Magna cum Laude from Harvard University with a degree in economics and received a MBA from Harvard Business School. A Danish national, Mr. Kroijer lives in London and is married with twin daughters.
Malcolm M. Trevillian is the founder of Chatham Advisors, which provides private wealth management to high-net-worth investors. He is also a member of the investment committee at Verity Asset Management, an investment firm specializing in serving the higher education and non-profit communities. He has 30 years of experience managing portfolios for individuals and institutions. Trevillian holds the Chartered Market Technician and Certified Financial Planner designations. He also served on the CFA Institute Board of Governors and as president of CFA North Carolina. He has also served as an adjunct professor at Duke University.
Marcelo Suarez Castillo, CFA, is the managing director of private wealth and securities brokerage for an international bank in El Salvador. He has 21 years of experience in the finance and investment profession in Central America, working in previous positions as treasurer, financial analyst, risk manager, and investment adviser. Castillo lectures at a local MBA program, and he is a board member of the Securities Foundation and the Securities Exchange of El Salvador. He holds a master's degree in finance and economics from INCAE Business School.
Mark Armbruster, CFA, is president of Armbruster Capital Management, Inc. (ACM), a boutique wealth management firm serving high-net-worth individual and institutional clients. ACM uses index funds, exchange-traded funds (ETFs), and other investment vehicles to build portfolios designed to reduce investment-related costs and taxes in order to maximize net returns. Previously, he worked in equity research on Wall Street, following the aerospace and defense industries at Smith Barney. Armbruster also worked in the equity strategy group for Salomon Smith Barney’s Chief Equity Strategist. He also started an investment advisory firm, where he served as chief investment officer. Armbruster has served on numerous nonprofit and for-profit corporate boards. He also consults on and provides expert testimony for investment-related legal disputes. Armbruster has been quoted on investment matters in several investment publications, including the Wall Street Journal and Investor’s Business Daily. He frequently gives talks on investment matters to professional investor groups. Armbruster has served as president of CFA Society Rochester. He holds a degree from the University of Rochester.
Martin Fridson, CFA, is, according to the New York Times, “one of Wall Street’s most thoughtful and perceptive analysts.” The Financial Management Association International named him its Financial Executive of the Year in 2002. In 2000, Fridson became the youngest person ever inducted into the Fixed Income Analysts Society Hall of Fame. He has been a guest lecturer at the graduate business schools of Babson, Columbia, Dartmouth, Duke, Fordham, Georgetown, Harvard, MIT, New York University, Notre Dame, Rutgers, and Wharton, as well as the Amsterdam Institute of Finance. Fridson's writings have been praised widely for their humor, rigor, and utility. He holds a BA in history from Harvard College and an MBA from Harvard Business School.
Matt focuses on asset pricing & allocation, policy, demographics and housing as a Portfolio Manager at New River Investments.
Phil Pearlman is the executive editor at StockTwits. He is a partner at Social Leverage, LLC, and makes early-stage investments in web-based companies. Pearlman ran a long/short equity hedge fund that focused on behavioral strategies and currently runs a private account. He began his trading career back in the day with a Datek account and an attitude. Pearlman has always loved to buy fear and sell euphoria. He is an editor of The StockTwits Edge (Wiley Trading). Pearlman holds a BA in English from the University of Maryland and a doctorate in clinical psychology from Argosy University.
Prasad Ramani, CFA, is the founder and CEO of Syntoniq, a behavioral tech company that seeks to transform the financial services practice by productizing cutting-edge behavioral finance research into easily usable tech applications. Ramani launched Syntoniq in 2017 to address inconsistencies in traditional financial service models following 18-plus years of experience in financial services, behavioral finance, and quantitative modeling. Ramani holds an MS in quantitative and computational finance (QCF) from the Georgia Institute of Technology. He is also a regular guest speaker at the London Business School where he teaches behavioral Finance and decision science.
Rhea Wessel is an American freelance writer based in Frankfurt, Germany. More of her work can be found here

A Skeptical View on ETFs

CFA Institute: Many investors may underestimate the risks associated with ETFs. What are they? Rick Ferri, CFA: I think the biggest risk with ETFs is that they trade as a security separate from the underlying security. In 2010, we had the so-called flash … Read more

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Robert G. Hagstrom, CFA, joined EquityCompass as a senior portfolio manager in 2014 and launched the Global Leaders Portfolio that same year. He serves as chair of the Investment Management Committee for Stifel Asset Management. Hagstrom has more than 30 years of investment experience. Prior to joining EquityCompass, he was the chief investment strategist of Legg Mason Investment Counsel, and before that the portfolio manager of the growth equity strategy at Legg Mason Capital Management where he managed over $7 billion in assets. Hagstrom was the recipient of “Honorable Mention” as Morningstar’s US Equity Manager of the Year in 2007. He has also served as president and chief investment officer of Legg Mason Focus Capital, general partner of Focus Capital Advisory, and principal at Lloyd, Leith & Sawin. Hagstrom is the author of nine investment books, including the New York Times bestseller The Warren Buffett Way. He earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Villanova University and is a member of CFA Institute and the CFA Society of Philadelphia.
Robert Martorana, CFA, runs Right Blend Investing (RBI), a fee-based adviser that specializes in retirement solutions. RBI has one unique claim to fame in that it supports an orphanage in Andhra Pradesh, India.
Robert Stammers, CFA, was director of Investor Engagement for CFA Institute and was responsible for increasing the use and distribution of Future of Finance and CFA Institute content by various audiences. Prior to joining CFA Institute, Stammers was the principal for his founded company where he consulted for real estate owners, lenders, and syndicators to develop and analyze structured real estate investments. There he devised strategy for obtaining debt and preferred equity capital and created finance-related marketing materials and research papers for various clients. Stammers has authored over 100 articles on various financial and investment topics for such investment periodicals as Forbes and Investopedia. He served as a senior equity analyst, where he was responsible for the creation of new investment tools and instructional products to provide the revenues for two new investment education companies. As a senior executive for several institutional fund managers, Stammers was the portfolio manager for a $1 billion enhanced real estate fund, a $1.2 billion private timber fund, and several pension fund separate accounts.

Is AI the New RIA?

Robert Stammers, CFA

Due to the proliferation of new computer-assisted advisory platforms, it’s natural to ask what investment advisers of the future will look like and whether they’ll be humans or robots. A fast-growing segment of the investment advisory market focuses on providing … Read more

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Russell Campbell, CFA, is CEO at Your Second Opinion, LLC, a management consulting firm dedicated to assisting leaders of investment management firms with business strategy. He has served in a number of executive leadership roles in his career, including as CEO at Marco Consulting Group, executive vice president at Amcore Bank, and president and CEO at ABN AMRO Asset Management Holdings Inc. Campbell has been a director of several for-profit and not-for-profit boards, and he is a member of numerous not-for-profit civic and industry organizations. He is quoted frequently in the media and has been a speaker at many industry conferences. Campbell attended the Advanced Management Program at INSEAD and also holds the Certified Financial Planner designation. He holds a BA in industrial relations from McGill University and an MBA in investment finance and marketing from York University.
Sam Madden, CFA, is the founder of InteractiveBuyside, a distribution & marketing platform enabling investment professionals to share their research with a broad-reaching network of individual and institutional investors. Prior to founding Interactive Buyside, Sam was co-CIO and CFO of MVR Capital, a long/short hedge fund focused on energy, agriculture and water technologies. Previously, Sam had been a Director at Highland Capital Management, a global alternative investment manager with $22 billion in AUM, where he managed a portfolio of $125 million consisting of leveraged loans, high yield bonds and equity. Prior to working at Highland, Sam was an analyst at Credit Suisse in the Industrials Group of the Investment Banking Division. The Interactive Buyside platform can be found here

A New Market for Hedge Funds

On 10 July 2013, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) voted 4–1 to lift a decades-old ban that has prevented hedge funds and private equity firms from marketing their investments to the general public. This move opens up billions of … Read more

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Santiago Padua, CFA is an Investment Analyst at Pegasus, a private equity and real estate investment fund, in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Before joining Pegasus, Santiago worked as a Senior Consultant at Ernst & Young and also as a Senior Research Analyst at Crisil Global Research and Analytics (formerly named Crisil Irevna Argentina S.A.), both based in Buenos Argentina. Santiago earned his CFA charter in 2012 and finished his undergraduate studies at Universidad Nacional de Cuyo (Mendoza, Argentina).
Sloane Ortel serves CFA Institute's members globally as a curator and commentator. Based in New York City, she is a regular contributor to the Enterprising Investor and a co-author (with Jason Voss, CFA) of CFA Institute's Investment Idea Generation Guide.
Sverre Rørvik Nilsen is a financial entrepreneur working out of Oslo, Norway. He runs two financial startups: One is a trading platform; the other a newswire. Nilsen also consults for a number of different clients. He has a weekly webshow with Howard Lindzon at Stocktwits.

Ted Seides, CFA

4 Posts
Ted Seides, CFA, created Capital Allocators LLC to explore best practices in the asset management industry. He launched the Capital Allocators podcast in 2017 and the show reached five million downloads in January 2021. Barron’s, Business Insider, Forbes and Value Walk each named it among the top investing podcasts. Alongside the podcast, Seides works with both managers and allocators to enhance their investment and business processes. In March 2021, he published his second book, Capital Allocators: How the World's Elite Money Managers Lead and Invest, to distill the lessons from the first 150 episodes of the podcast. You can follow him on LinkedIn and Twitter.
Tim Nuding, CFA is the Chief Executive of Prosperity Capital Services LLP, a firm that provides research and consulting services for alternative investments. Tim is also the Founder of the Hedge Fund Research Club, sponsored by the CFA Society of the UK and CAIA London chapter. Tim formerly managed international asset management and investment banking businesses for Citibank and Dresdner Bank in the UK and Japan. He received his CFA charter in 2000 and is active in the CFA Society of the UK and the CFA Institute.
Timothy P. Connolly, CFA, is a founder of Sconset Capital Management, a long/short equity hedge fund. Previously, he was an instructor for Stalla Review for the CFA exams and a portfolio manager at Sofaer Global Research, where he was responsible for a carve-out portion of a global hedge fund. Connolly has also served as a senior financial analyst at Sheer Asset Management and as a director of Omega Portfolio Management of CIBC Oppenheimer. He holds a BS degree in quantitative analysis from St. John's University.

Tom Brakke, CFA

3 Posts
Tom Brakke, CFA, helps investment firms and the buyers of their services to improve decision processes and effectively communicate their ideas internally and externally. At times during his career, Tom has been an analyst, portfolio manager, director of research, creator of investment products, professor, and consultant (including for the Global Research Analyst Settlement). Brakker writes extensively about the business on his blog about the research puzzle and his newsletter, The Prudent Fiduciary Digest.
Brad McMillan, CFA, CAIA, is the chief investment officer at Commonwealth Financial Network, a private independent broker/dealer, where he also leads the retirement consulting division. McMillan holds the CAIA, MAI, and AIF professional certifications. He holds a BA from Dartmouth College, an MS in real estate development from MIT, and a BS in finance from Boston College.