Judges

2017-18 Competition Judges

Jim Chanos, Founder & President - Kynikos Associates


Jim Chanos is the founder and Managing Partner of Kynikos Associates LP.  As the world’s largest exclusive short selling investment firm, Kynikos Associates LP provides investment management services for domestic and offshore clients. Through investment funds, partnerships, corporations, and managed accounts – domestic and offshore – Kynikos Associates LP maintains private portfolios of securities for clients.  The Ursus, Kriticos and Kynikos Opportunity funds seek to profit from the unusually high alphas found on the long and short side of the U.S. and non-U.S. equity markets.

Mr. Chanos opened Kynikos Associates LP in 1985 to implement investment strategies he had uncovered while beginning his Wall Street career as a financial analyst with Paine Webber, Gilford Securities, and Deutsche Bank.  Throughout his investment career, Mr. Chanos has identified and sold short the shares of numerous well-known corporate financial disasters; among them, Baldwin-United, Commodore International, Coleco, Integrated Resources, Boston Chicken, Sunbeam, Conseco, and Tyco International. His celebrated short-sale of Enron shares was dubbed by Barron’s as “the market call of the decade, if not the past fifty years.”  The media has noted his prescience in alerting finance ministers and others about the global financial crisis well before it occurred.  His views on the lessons from the crisis, capital markets regulation, and investment strategies, among other topics, are regularly covered by news organizations worldwide.

Mr. Chanos is chairman of the Coalition of Private Investment Companies, whose members are diverse in their size and investment strategies.  The members’ clients include pension funds, asset managers, foundation, other institutional investors, and qualified wealthy individuals.  In that role, Mr. Chanos has testified before Congress and provided comments to regulations proposed by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the Financial Services Authority in the United Kingdom.

Mr. Chanos is currently a Lecturer in Finance and Becton Fellow at the Yale School of Management, teaching a class on the history of financial fraud.

Born and raised in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Mr. Chanos lives in New York City, and has four children.  He is President of the Board of Trustees of The Browning School, and serves as a Trustee at The Nightingale-Bamford School and The New-York Historical Society.  Mr. Chanos received his BA in economics and political science in 1980 from Yale University.


John Glass – Managing Director, Morgan Stanley


John Glass is a Managing Director in Equity Research; he covers the US restaurant industry. John joined Morgan Stanley in 2008, and has covered restaurant stocks since 2000. Prior to that, he followed hardline retailers from 1997 to 2000. He is consistently ranked at the top of industry by both the Institutional Investor and Greenwich Associates annual surveys.

Prior to joining Morgan Stanley, John's sell-side research experience includes six years at CIBC World Markets and five years at Alex Brown & Sons/Deutsche Bank. John holds a BA from Colby College and an MBA from Yale University. His prior work experience includes consulting at Coopers & Lybrand and five years' experience as a journalist. John lives in the Boston area with his wife and three daughters.


Robert Pohly – Founder & Portfolio Manager


Rob is the Portfolio Manager and founder of Samlyn Capital, a $4.2 billion equity long/short fund founded in March 2007. Prior to joining Samlyn, Rob was a Portfolio Manager at Sigma Capital Management from 2001 to 2006. Rob was a Portfolio Manager at Credit Suisse First Boston in its proprietary investing group from 2000 to 2001. 

Previously, Rob served as a financial services Analyst at Tiger Management from 1997 to 2000. Prior to joining Tiger, Rob was an Analyst in Goldman Sachs' Equity Capital Markets group from 1996 to 1997 and an investment banking Analyst in Goldman Sachs' Financial Institutions Group from 1994 to 1996.  Rob received an A.B. from Yale University


Eddie Tam, CEO & CIO - Central Asset Investments


Eddie Tam is the Chief Executive Officer and Chief Investment Officer of Central Asset Investments. Mr. Tam founded Central Asset Investments in April 20 05, and oversees the management of the firm, as well as the CAI Global Fund and the CAI Special Opportunities Fund. Primarily, Mr. Tam is responsible for top down asset allocation between strategies, asset classes, geography and themes. Under his leadership, the CAI Global Fund has an annualized return of over 18% since its inception in September 2005. The fund was ranked the #1 best-performing multi-strategy hedge fund globally according to Bloomberg (based on 5 year annual returns) and Barclayhedge in 2013. Mr. Tam has over 20 years of experience within the industry. Prior to founding Central Asset Investments, Mr. Tam was at Fore Research & Management as the Chief Portfolio Manager of the Fore Opportunity Fund. Before joining the buy-side, Mr. Tam worked with equity derivatives, first at Merrill Lynch, and then at Credit Lyonnais where he was most recently the Head of Sales and Marketing of Asian derivatives. During this time, Mr. Tam was credited as one of the pioneers in Asian equity derivatives. Mr. Tam received his MPPM from Yale School of Management in 1993, holds an M.A.Sc., a B.A.Sc. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Toronto, and is currently an active board member of the International Center of Finance and the Greater China Advisory Board at the Yale School of Management. In October 2010, Mr. Tam was named one of the 25 most influential people in Asian hedge funds by Asian Investors. Mr. Tam is a frequent guest on leading financial and business television channels, including CNBC and Bloomberg TV, where he shares his latest macroeconomic views and investment strategies with viewers. Central Asset Investments Central Asset Investments is an established Asia-focused multi-strategy investment firm. Founded in 2005, Central Asset Investments capitalizes on the firm’s Asian investment background and strength in equities, convertible bonds, and fixed income in order to provide investors with long term, superior absolute returns. The Central Asset Investments team consists of professionals in both Hong Kong and Shenzhen, working across portfolio management, research, risk management, investor relations and operations. Central Asset Investments was voted as the “Asia Focused Multi-Strategy Investment Firm of the Year” by Acquisition International in 2014. Central Asset Investments manages the CAI Global Fund and the CAI Special Opportunities Fund. The CAI Global Fund has an annualized return of over 19% since its inception in September 2005. The fund is ranked the #1 best-performing multi-strategy hedge fund globally according to Bloomberg (based on 5 year annual returns) and Barclayhedge in 2013. The fund was also voted “Best Multi-strategy Hedge Fund” in 2011, “Best Hedge Fund Asia-Pacific” in 2010 and “Best Hedge Fund Asia (Ex-Japan)” in 2008 by Asian Investor.

 


Matthew Spiegel, Professor of Finance and Faculty Advisor for the Competition


Matthew Spiegel is Professor of Finance and Director of Graduate Studies at the Yale School of Management. His research ranges widely with publications in the areas of market microstructure, asset pricing, real estate, corporate finance, and experimental economics. His theoretical work has helped to explain stock market volatility, what factors lead to market breakdowns and how mergers within an industry impact the new firm’s competitors over time. His empirical work has included the development of statistical methods that can estimate the impact of local characteristics on housing returns and for identifying when and if a particular mutual fund will generate above market returns. These articles have won the ANBAR Management Intelligence Citation of Excellence, the Michael Brennan Best Paper Award and the Ross Best Paper Award.

In 2015 his overall body of work was recognized with Eastern Finance Association’s Distinguished Scholar Award. Matthew Spiegel is currently the president for the Society for Financial Studies and its former vice president. He is also the Society's advisory chair for its annual Finance Cavalcade conference and the former executive editor of its journal the Review of Financial Studies. Professor Spiegel was formerly an associate professor, with tenure, at the Haas School of Business at the University of California-Berkeley. He is a former co-editor and founder of the Journal of Financial Markets, a former associate editor of the Review of Financial Studies, and a past member of the Nasdaq Economic Advisory Board.