PENSO - Key Persons
Ari Bergmann - Chief Investment Officer, Founder
Job Titles:
- Chief Investment Officer
- Founder
- Managing Principal
Ari Bergmann is Penso's Founder and Managing Principal/CIO. He leads the firm's investment committee and manages various Penso funds and clients' mandates.
Dr. Bergmann founded Penso Advisors, LLC in early 2010 to offer systemic risk management and implement hedging strategies for asset managers and institutional investors through managed accounts. Since its founding, Penso has expanded its services to include management of discretionary global macro and risk mitigation strategies through private funds and bespoke funds of one.
Between 1997 and 2010, Dr. Bergmann was CEO of Sentinel Advisors, LLC, manager of the Citadel Master Fund (derivatives arbitrage); Sentinel Symphony, LLC, manager of the Symphony FOHF (multi-manager fund of hedge funds) and Penso Capital Markets, LLC, manager of risk overlays.
Prior to his role in overseeing these firms, Dr. Bergmann was employed at Bankers Trust from 1989 to 1997. In 1989, he joined Bankers Trust's U.S. Interest Rate Derivatives trading desk and managed this unit during 1992 and 1993. During this period, he was active in the development of structured notes, index-amortizing swaps, time swaps, binary options and other derivative products. From late 1993 until his departure in 1997, he headed the Risk Merchant Bank and the Transaction Development Group at the bank. He founded the latter to integrate Bankers Trust's finance and derivative capabilities to offer enhanced corporate finance products to corporate clients. In this capacity, he led a team that created a derivatives structure that was widely used in the privatization of many large European companies. He also developed derivatives and trading strategies used by several corporations in the implementation of strategic acquisitions. During his tenure at Bankers Trust, Dr. Bergmann was a Senior Managing Director and a pioneer in the field who helped create and implement the initial swaps on hedge funds.
From 1987 through 1989, Dr. Bergmann was an Assistant Vice President at Drexel Burnham Lambert Trading Corp., working in precious metals and commodity trading. From 1986 through 1987, Dr. Bergmann was a staff accountant at Price Waterhouse in New York.
Dr. Bergmann holds a Master's in Liberal Studies and a Ph.D. in Comparative Religion, both from Columbia University.
Dustin Barzell joined Penso Advisors as General Counsel in 2021. Prior to joining Penso, he served as an associate at the law firms of Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP and Caplin & Drysdale, Chartered. He began his career as law clerk to the Honorable Charles R. Wilson, United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit.
Dustin holds a J.D. degree from New York University School of Law and a B.A from University of Colorado Boulder.
Eric joined Penso Advisors in March 2022. He is a member of the firm's investment committee, and participates in all discussions pertaining to risk, idea generation and trade execution. Prior to joining the firm, Eric has worked on the Foreign Exchange Options trading desk at Goldman Sachs NY office for four years from 2018 to 2022. He started on their FX Correlation & Exotics book, and later moved on to trade the Latin America flow book while helping run the Asia flow book in the NY hours.
Eric has a Bachelor of Science in Actuarial Science & a Bachelor of Arts in Economics from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and a Master of Science in Financial Mathematics from the University of Chicago.
Job Titles:
- Director of Risk Analytics
Greg joined Penso Advisors in August 2022 as a Director of Risk Analytics. His focus is risk management and quantitative analytics. Before joining the firm, Greg was a Senior Software Engineer / Risk Expert at AIG Market Risk Management from 2019 to 2022, where he worked on building a large-scale in-house risk management system used for hedging and valuing Variable/Index/Fixed annuity products. Before AIG, he was a quantitative researcher at Alliance Bernstein from 2016 to 2019, covering research in systematic macro and tail risk protection strategies. Before AB, Greg worked at Deutsche Bank Asset Wealth Management from 2014 to 2016, where he was part of the team building alternative risk premium strategies.
Greg holds a bachelor's degree in Computer Science from the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, a Master's in Computer Science from the University of Southern California, and a Master's in Financial Engineering from UCLA Anderson School of Management.
Jacopo is a member of the Penso Advisors portfolio management team. Prior to joining Penso in January 2024, Mr. Gentile worked at different hedge funds such as Brevan Howard, Pimco Volatility Absolute Return Fund and Capstone Investment Advisors. Throughout his career, he specialized in trading volatility in both Fixed Income and Equity.
Mr. Gentile was born in Milan Italy, has a Bachelor of Science in Econometrics from the Università Cattolica Del Sacro Cuore of Milan 2016, and a Master of Science in Quantitative Finance from the Gabelli Business School of New York.
Job Titles:
- Chief Operating Officer
- Managing Director
Jaime Shechter is one of the founding members of Penso Advisors, and has been with the firm since its inception. Mr. Shechter manages all aspects of the business side of the firm, focusing primialry on operations and business devlopement. The marketing/IR, middle/back office, compliance, legal and IT departments report to him. Mr. Shechter has been working with Mr. Bergmann since 2007. Prior to that Mr. Shechter worked at Bear Stearns from 2006-2007 and prior to that was the founder and CEO of Aegis Group S.A., based in Latin America, a financial services boutique firm he founded in 1995 and sold in 2004.
Jaime Shechter is fluent in English and Spanish and has a BA Degree in Biology from Yeshiva University in New York.
Job Titles:
- Director of Business Development
Jonathan Stark joined Penso Advisors as a Director of Business Development & IR in 2019. He is focused on sourcing and raising capital for the Firm's strategies as well as being a resource for existing clients. Prior to joining Penso, Jonathan was an Executive Director on the J.P. Morgan Prime Brokerage Capital Introductions team, covering a wide variety of institutional investors and hedge fund strategies. Earlier he was a hedge fund allocator at both AIFAM Inc. and Kenmar Global, where he focused on equity L/S, quant equity, and vol strategies. He began his finance career in equity research, primarily covering the energy and utility sectors at Citigroup, RNK Capital, Bear Wagner, and UBS, on both the buy and sell-side. Jonathan received a B.S. in Information & Decision Systems and an M.S. in Public Management & Policy, from Carnegie Mellon University and an MBA from Columbia Business School. He has attained the Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst Designation (CAIA) and passed CFA level one.
Leigh Waxman - Chief Compliance Officer
Leigh Waxman joined Penso Advisors as the Chief Compliance Officer in 2016. Prior to joining Penso, she was the Chief Compliance Officer/General Counsel at Para Advisors LLC where she oversaw all legal and compliance matters respecting the firm and its funds from 2006-2016. Prior thereto, Ms. Waxman was the general counsel at Dickstein Partners Inc. from 1997-2006. Prior to that, she worked as an associate in the corporate department in each of Morgan Lewis & Bockius LLP and Lord Day & Lord, Barrett Smith. Leigh received a J.D. degree from Columbia University School of Law and a B.A, Magna Cum Laude. from City University of New York, Queens College. .
Job Titles:
- Advisory Board As an Inaugural Member
Mike Edleson joined the Penso Advisory Board as an inaugural member in May 2020. Mike was Managing Director at The University of Chicago Office of Investments as Chief Risk Officer since April 2010, recently retiring to Emeritus status. From 2003 to 2010, he ran risk management globally for four major divisions of Morgan Stanley as Managing Director, including Equities and Morgan Stanley Smith Barney. Previously, he served as Chief Economist and Senior Vice President of NASDAQ and NASD. Edleson was a finance professor at Harvard Business School for over six years, following four years on the faculty at West Point; he was an Army engineer officer and served over 29 years in uniform, active and reserve. Mike is a well-known speaker on risk and portfolio management topics, and a financial author and inventor. He has been co-editor or associate editor of two finance journals, recently serving on the board of Financial Management Association International. Edleson earned a BS from West Point and an MS and PhD in economics from MIT, and is a CFA charter holder and author of the new CFA Risk Management curriculum. He currently serves on the Investment Committee of the board at West Point, and on the boards of three other hedge funds.
Paul joined Penso in August 2021 as Middle Office Manager and is responsible for trading desk support and operational activities for the portfolio management team. Prior to Penso, worked at HSBC as a trading assistant on their Latam swaps desk. Prior to that he was a risk/product controller at Jeffereis, supporting their structured and relative value credit arbitrage desk for two years. Prior to that he worked at BNP as a product controller for the prime brokerage and equity finance business.
Paul graduated McGill University in 2003.
Paul Yi is a Senior Portfolio Manager and member of the investment committee. He participates in all discussions pertaining to risk, idea generation and trade execution. Prior to joining the firm in 2011, Mr. Yi worked on the Fixed Income trading desk at Wells Fargo from late 2007 until early 2011. He was responsible for trading USD Interest Rate Derivatives for Institutional and Middle Market clients. Before joining the trading desk, he worked for the Corporate Treasury Group where he ran the VAR analysis for the various trading portfolios. He also assisted with the Interest Rate Balance Sheet strategies for the Asset /Liability Management Team. Mr. Yi has a Bachelor of Science Degree in Business from University of California Berkeley. He received his CFA in 2009.
Job Titles:
- Advisory Board As an Inaugural Member
Ray Kanner joined the Penso Advisory Board as an inaugural member in May 2020. Ray retired in late 2016 as the Managing Director and Chief Investment Officer of IBM's global Retirement Funds' system, after having spent nine years as its CIO, overseeing approximately $150 billion of IBM pension and savings funds worldwide. His IBM career spanned 38 years, with positions in Systems, Treasury, Mortgages and Credit before joining the pension fund in 1993.
He earned an MBA and MPh from New York University and a BS from Brooklyn College. He has held various part-time teaching positions at NYU, Brooklyn College and Long Island University. From 1997 through 2016, he was a board member of the Emerging Markets Growth Fund - a mutual fund of the Capital Group. He was the chair of CIEBA (Committee on Investment of Employee Benefit Assets - the industry trade group for large corporate CIO's) from 2015-2016 and its acting Executive Director until mid-2017. In addition, he was an advisory board member of the Russell Index Committee from 2001 to 2014. He is currently a trustee of the JPMorgan mutual fund complex, a member of State Street's Global Fiduciary Services Advisory Board, a member of Los Angeles Capital's Advisory Board and an investment committee member on two charitable foundations.
Zubin joined Penso as an analyst in Sep 2012. He is part of the team involved with post trade related activities. He worked as Equity Derivative trader trainee and then as Operations Research Analyst at "Group One Trading LP." before joining Penso. At Group One Trading, Zubin was responsible for assisting sales traders and market makers in all aspects of trade execution. Zubin has a Master of Science Degree in Financial Engineering from Stevens Institute of Technology. He has passed CFA level one.