The 2016 Hedge Fund Rising Stars: Jamie Pabst

Jamie Pabst went from statement necklaces to financial statements. Early last decade the native of Missouri capital Jefferson City was vice president of public relations for her sorority chapter at the University of Missouri, studying marketing and minoring in business, with strategic communications as a career goal. During a six-month stretch between her junior and senior years of college, Pabst landed what seemed to be a dream job: an internship in New York with a communications company that organizes the world’s largest fashion trade show. But she quickly discovered that fashion wasn’t her true calling. After graduating in 2006, Pabst, 32, headed back to New York to work in creative art direction at an ad agency. Three months into the job, though, she began to get hints that her talents might be better suited to Wall Street than Madison Avenue. Some advertising clients who worked in private equity suggested that she try finance.

In late 2006, Pabst moved into asset management, joining Greenwich, Connecticut–based Kamunting Street Capital Management. She brought her branding and public relations background to the credit opportunities hedge fund firm while learning the ins and outs of trading and research. Pabst directed investor communications and capital-raising efforts at Kamunting Street for eight years, until founder and CEO Allan Tehannounced last springthat he would wind down the hedge funds and convert the firm into a family office, citing losses and a redemption from a key investor. At its height Kamunting Street had about $1 billion in assets.

After six months of recentering, Pabst wound up at $159 million Green Owl Capital Management in September as the New York–based firm’s first internal marketing and investor relations hire. The investment climate of the past nine months hasn’t been kind to hedge funds, never mind conducive to marketing them with polish. Pabst, however, wields Green Owl’s event-driven strategies approach to tell a story: Things change, creating new ways to unlock value.

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