The 2014 Hedge Fund Rising Stars: Deepak Gulati

Not every rookie hedge fund manager can attract a former White House official to his firm, but Deepak Gulati is not just anyone. In April his Argentière Capital announced that William Daley, President Barack Obama’s ex–chief of staff, secretary of Commerce in the Clinton administration and a member of the powerful Chicago political family, had joined as head of U.S. operations. Gulati and Daley both previously worked at JPMorgan Chase & Co. Daley left in 2011 for the White House; Gulati departed in 2013, part of the proprietary trading diaspora resulting from banking regulatory reform. Based in London, he’d joined the firm in 2003 from German bank Dresdner Kleinwort; he and his team were regarded as one of JPMorgan’s top prop trading groups. Gulati, 36, who holds a BS from the McIntire School of Commerce at the University of Virginia, launched Zug, Switzerland–based Argentière last year. He left with JPMorgan’s blessing, taking along 15 people for his $500 million multistrategy fund, which focuses on liquidequity markets. Gulati and Daley were introduced by John (Jes) Staley, another JPMorgan alumnus, who is now a managing partner with U.S.-based hedge fund firm BlueMountain Capital Management.