BlackRock
As quantitative credentials go, it’s hard to get much better than Grace Gu’s. She holds a BS in electrical engineering and an MS in financial mathematics from Stanford University, which with its close ties to Silicon Valley is not known for producing slouches on such subjects. And Gu proved to be anything but, receiving both the prestigious top undergraduate President’s Scholarship and the Frederick Terman Award, given to the top 5 percent of engineering students. She was also the gold medalist of the Singapore Physics Olympiad in 2000. However, with a college internship at Goldman, Sachs & Co. under her belt and a series of mentors encouraging her to stay in finance, Gu ultimately chose finance over the Google route. She went back to Goldman and became a portfolio manager on its Global Alpha hedge fund. In 2008, BlackRock hired her, showing how much that firm values the kind of analytical, quantitative thinking the former physics whiz excels at. At 30, Gu is the lead portfolio manager on BlackRock’s multistrategy fund of hedge funds.
| Hedge Fund Rising Stars | ||||||
| NAME | FIRM | |||||
| Rick Gerson | Falcon Edge Capital | |||||
| David Ben-Ur | Caxton Alternative Management LP | |||||
| Atwood 'Porter' Collins | Seawolf Capital | |||||
| Javier Dyer | Permal Group | |||||
| Adam Fisher | Commonwealth Opportunity Capital | |||||
| Jason Karp | Carlson Capital | |||||
| Akiva Katz | Bow Street | |||||
| Laurie Katz | GoldenTree Asset Management | |||||
| Ingrid Kiefer | Canyon Partners | |||||
| Simon Krinsky | Hall Capital Partners | |||||
| Carrie Lo | California State Teachers Employees Retirement System | |||||
| Drew McKnight | Fortress Investment Group | |||||
| Marina Mekhlis | Rocaton Investment Advisors | |||||
| Neil Messing | Bureau of Asset Management, New York City | |||||
| Gideon Nieuwoudt | Silver Creek Capital Management | |||||
| Ricky Nardis | UBS Alternative Investment Solutions | |||||
| Vinay Nair | Ada Investments | |||||
| Sean Murphy | Game Creek Capital | |||||
| Kimberly Mounts | MAP Alternative Asset Management Company | |||||
| Tony Waskiewicz | Sisters of Mercy Health Systems | |||||
| Andrew Tsai | Chalkstream Capital Group | |||||
| David Solomon | Goldman, Sachs & Co. | |||||
| Howard Shainker | Bow Street | |||||
| Danny Sachnowitz | Texas Treasury Safekeeping Trust | |||||
| Justin Press | BTIG | |||||
| Dean Curnutt | Macro Risk Advisors | |||||
| James Grossman | Pennsylvania Public School Employees' Retirement System | |||||
| Chris Paolino | Hartford Investment Management | |||||
| Mick McGuire | Marcato Capital Management | |||||