Stenham Asset Management has appointed Pablo Balan as Head of Risk Management and Quantitative Research.
Balan, who joined the firm in the last quarter of 2011 is based in Stenham’s London office. He is a member of the firm’s Investment Advisory Committee and is responsible for overseeing all aspects of risk across the full range of Stenham’s funds and portfolios. His assessment of risk encompasses the fundamental and quantitative inputs to the Stenham investment process. He is also responsible for generating quantitative research on underlying funds and portfolio analytics to assist the fund selection, monitoring and portfolio construction processes.
Balan has 17 years of investment experience, and spent eight years at Coutts & Co where, as Global Head of Portfolio Risk and Quantitative Analysis, he was responsible for investment risk management, portfolio construction and quantitative systems development. Total client assets for which he had responsibility exceeded GBP20 billion. He first joined Coutts as a Manager for Customised Investments, with responsibility for originating, structuring and selling equity, fixed income, foreign exchange and commodity structured products. Prior to Coutts & Co he worked for Citigroup Private Bank in London as Vice President of the Foreign Exchange and Interest Rate Derivatives desk and in the United States as Vice President Investment Counsellor advising Latin American clients on their investment strategy. Earlier in his career he held investment roles at two single manager hedge funds.
Balan is a CFA Charterholder and has an MSc in Mathematical Trading and Finance from Cass Business School. He also holds a Master in International Affairs from Columbia University and a BA in Physics from Amherst College in the United States. He is currently undertaking an executive track PhD in Finance at the EDHEC Business School with a primary research focus on Hedge Funds. He is fluent in Spanish and Portuguese, and proficient in French.
Jeremy Alun-Jones (pictured), Group Managing Director, says: ‘We are delighted to welcome Pablo to Stenham who brings with him a wealth of institutional level risk management experience. At Stenham we have a very conservative approach to managing clients’ investments with risk management being at the heart of our investment philosophy. Our investment process has evolved over the last 20 years to be as much about managing risk as delivering returns. We have a qualitatively driven approach with significant input to our investment decisions from operational and quantitative research which ensures there is a robust challenge to our qualitative view.’
Balan says: ‘I am delighted to have joined Stenham. I have respected the company for many years and since joining have become further impressed by the calibre of the firm and the people. Stenham has impressive risk management systems and processes which I am looking forward to further developing. I will also be looking into how quantitative research can be more deeply embedded into our investment process.’
