AIMA, the global hedge fund association, has appointed a new chair and deputy chair of the AIMA Investor Steering Committee (ISC), which features leading institutional investors in hedge funds.
The new chair is Michelle McGregor-Smith, chief executive of British Airways Pension Investment Management, and the deputy chair is Kurt Silberstein, managing director, alternative investments at Ascent Private Capital Management, a subsidiary of US Bank.
McGregor-Smith is an adviser to the investment committee of the Health Foundation, a UK based charity, and a member of the UK Advisory Council of the CFA Institute. A member of the ISC since 2009, she co-authored the ISC’s investors’ views and preferences paper in 2011 and wrote the foreword to Beyond 60/40: The evolving role of hedge funds in institutional investor portfolios, which was published in May 2013.
She says: “I have enjoyed working with my ISC colleagues and AIMA on the various projects and research initiatives undertaken in the last few years, and I look forward to collaboration with a broadened ISC which will add new insights and experience to further the work of the committee.”
Prior to joining Ascent in August 2011, Silberstein worked for 12 years at CalPERS. He has been a key contributor to many of the ISC’s publications over the years, including being a co-author of the first edition of AIMA’s Roadmap to Hedge Funds guide for investors in 2008.
Silberstein says: “I look forward to working with AIMA and the ISC in furthering its efforts to providing information and addressing specific issues associated with investing in alternatives."
Their appointments coincide with an expansion of the ISC, which now includes more than 20 institutional investor members who collectively manage over USD800bn in assets.
AIMA chief executive Andrew Baker (pictured) says: “I would like to pay tribute to Michelle and Kurt, who have been among the ISC's strongest supporters in recent years. The ISC now comprises pension funds, endowments and sovereign wealth funds from every region of the world and goes from strength to strength.”
