Investment Teams

GMO’s investment teams are all grounded in a long-term, valuation-based investment philosophy.

Each team has focused, deep expertise investing across multi-asset class, equity, fixed income, or alternative markets, and each employs its own active investment process. Some GMO teams rely on innovative quantitative tools, others use rigorous fundamental research, while many blend the two approaches.

Clients benefit from working with the leading investors of today and those who are just starting to make their marks. On average, our investment team leaders have over 20 years’ industry experience, and many have spent a large portion of their careers at GMO. This leadership group has experience investing through multiple market cycles – perspective that helps our investment teams maintain a focus on the long term. The over 100 investment professionals who work on our teams share a common set of values centered on our investment philosophy and a focus on client outcomes.

Investment teams actively collaborate and share research, using our collective experience to fine-tune our processes and produce new ideas. We regularly publish research based on this work to address a range of client issues.

Asset Allocation

Asset Allocation is a core competency of GMO, and multi-asset class portfolios represent a large portion of GMO’s assets under management. The Asset Allocation team believes that expected returns for asset classes change as valuations change, and these views are reflected in our 7-Year Asset Class Forecasts. The team’s process takes advantage of the changing opportunity set by actively rotating portfolio allocations and taking risk in line with the rewards on offer. By being valuation-sensitive investors, we successfully identified the Japanese Equity bubble (the 1980s), the Dot-Com bubble (the late 1990s), and the Global Risk bubble (the 2007-2008 timeframe), avoiding the permanent impairment of capital from the bursting of these bubbles.

GMO’s Asset Allocation team has managed asset allocation portfolios since 1988 and has been a pioneer in unconstrained, absolute return-oriented investing since first recommending this approach at our 1999 Fall Conference. With team members located in Boston, San Francisco, and London, the team can access both traditional (equity, fixed income, credit, cash) and alternative asset classes via strategies actively managed by other GMO investment teams. In this way, Asset Allocation draws on the investment expertise of the entire firm.

Developed Rates & FX

The Developed Rates & FX team members have backgrounds in finance, economics, physics, math, statistics, and computer science – experience that helps them in developing and implementing quantitative investment strategies focused on global fixed income and currency markets. The team manages both leveraged absolute return and benchmark-plus strategies, all of which benefit from alpha streams derived from proprietary models. 

Emerging Country Debt

GMO founded our emerging debt effort in 1994, making us one of the earliest dedicated investment managers in the asset class. The Emerging Country Debt team counts among its members sovereign, corporate, and local market specialists with significant experience in the asset class. The team has applied a bottom-up security selection focus since inception, an approach that sets GMO apart from other managers who stress the importance of top-down investing in emerging debt markets. 

Event-Driven

The Event-Driven team’s portfolio and risk management philosophy is governed by the belief that in an asymmetric field where losses are often disproportionate to gains, a competitive advantage can be gained by using a probabilistic framework at both the security selection and portfolio allocation levels.

Focused Equity

GMO’s Focused Equity team manages benchmark-agnostic, fundamentally driven equity portfolios: the Quality, Resources, and Climate Change Strategies. The team takes a long horizon view to investing, focusing on businesses with enduring relevance and secular growth drivers. Launched in 2004, the Quality Strategy is designed to be a core equity holding with a favorable risk return tradeoff, while the Resources and Climate Change Strategies, launched in 2011 and 2017, respectively, target specific opportunities with compelling secular tailwinds. The team’s approach is to reinforce fundamental analysis with rigorous systematic work. The experienced team is based in Boston and London and also manages long/short versions of the Quality and Resources Strategies.

Short Duration

GMO’s Short Duration Strategies team consists of portfolio manager Tracey Keenan, Head of Short Duration Strategies, and three research and implementation professionals. Given our emphasis on exploiting pricing inefficiencies in G10 sovereign debt and cash markets, we believe that the optimal portfolio management structure comprises a small, cohesive team of experienced investors with clearly defined roles working in a collaborative fashion. The team is supported by additional research, trading, and operations professionals at the firm.

Structured Products

GMO’s Structured Products team members have over 14 years’ experience on average in structured product and asset-backed security investing. The team leverages this extensive experience to employ both top-down and bottom-up analysis to identify securities that provide the best value relative to what is currently available in the market. Importantly, the team is fully empowered to buy what is truly the best value, rather than just what is in the benchmark.

Systematic Equity

The Systematic Equity team is a carefully assembled world-class quantitative research effort built on a wide array of quantitative disciplines, including backgrounds in physics, mathematics, statistics, finance, economics, accounting, engineering, operations research, and business. The team brings together long-standing GMO quantitative equity expertise into one global group of investment professionals collaborating across GMO’s Boston, San Francisco, London, and Singapore offices and applies its alpha insights to a range of U.S., international, emerging markets, and global equity strategies across the firm. The team as a whole is supported by GMO’s research team of over 100 investment professionals worldwide, which has been responsible for many innovations that keep GMO on the leading edge of investment research and development.

Systematic Global Macro

The Systematic Global Macro team was established at GMO in 1999. The team members’ tenure and experience together has enabled our investment philosophy and process to remain consistent, while our commitment to investment research facilitates the application of desired enhancements. Based in our Sydney office, the team conducts research on an ongoing basis to ensure the quantitative models used are as strong as possible. 

Usonian Japan Equity

GMO’s Usonian Japan Equity team utilizes a disciplined, bottom-up, value approach to capitalize on unique inefficiencies in the Japanese equity market. Leveraging significant experience investing in Japan, the team maintains a long-term perspective and engages with company management to help enhance corporate governance and create long-term shareholder value. The team has managed the Japan Value Strategy since 2011 and joined GMO in 2020, with team members located in GMO’s Berkeley office and a representative office in Tokyo. 

Investment Leadership

Joe Auth

Joe Auth

Head of Developed Fixed Income

Mr. Auth is the head of GMO's Developed Fixed Income team and a partner of the firm. He is the lead portfolio manager for the Opportunistic Income and High Yield strategies and heads the Structured Products team as well. Prior to joining GMO in 2014, he was a Portfolio Manager for the Harvard Management Company. He was also a Research Director at Standish Mellon Asset Management. Mr. Auth earned his bachelor's degree in Government and History from Connecticut College and his MBA from the University of Connecticut. He is a CFA charterholder.

Arjun Divecha

Arjun Divecha

Founder of GMO Emerging Markets Equity

Mr. Divecha is the founder of GMO Emerging Markets Equity and a partner of the firm. Prior to joining GMO in 1993, he spent 12 years at BARRA directing software development, marketing, client service, and emerging markets research and development. Mr. Divecha holds a Bachelor of Technology in Aeronautical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay and an MBA in Finance from Cornell University.

Drew Edwards

Drew Edwards

Head of Usonian Japan Equity

Mr. Edwards is the Head of GMO’s Usonian Japan Equity team and a partner of the firm. Prior to joining GMO in 2020, he served as Portfolio Manager, Chief Investment Officer (CIO), and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) at Usonian Investments LLC. Mr. Edwards has been a member of the Usonian team since 2008. Prior to founding Usonian, he was Managing Director and Portfolio Manager at Advisory Research, Inc. Previously, Mr. Edwards had also been an investment professional at Taiyo Pacific Partners, an activist fund backed by CalPERS and W. L. Ross that focuses on Japanese equities, an investment banker at Lehman Brothers, and a finance executive in the health care industry. He earned his BA in International Business from Sophia University (Tokyo) and his MBA and JD from Northwestern University. Mr. Edwards is proficient in Japanese.

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Doug Francis

Head of Event-Driven

Mr. Francis is engaged in managing GMO’s Event-Driven portfolio and a partner of the firm. Previously at GMO, he was a member of the Global Equity team. Prior to joining GMO in 2009, he was a managing director for Tisbury Capital Management LP. Previously, he was also a managing director (equities) for Sowood Capital Management LP and a managing principal at Pegasus Investments LLC. Mr. Francis earned his bachelor's degree in Economics from Trinity College and his MBA from Boston University.

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Jason Halliwell

Head of Systematic Global Macro

Mr. Halliwell is the head of GMO’s Systematic Global Macro team and a partner of the firm. He joined GMO in September 1999 from Westpac Investment Management where he spent three years in research and development of quantitative tactical asset allocation methods. Mr. Halliwell has an honours degree in Commerce/Law from Queensland University and has completed postgraduate studies in Financial Mathematics at the University of Technology in Sydney. He is a CFA charterholder.

Tom Hancock

Tom Hancock

Head of Focused Equity

Dr. Hancock is the head of the Focused Equity team, a portfolio manager for GMO’s Quality Strategies and a partner of the firm. Previously at GMO, he was co-head of the Global Equity team. Prior to joining GMO in 1995, he was a research scientist at Siemens and a software engineer at IBM. Dr. Hancock holds BS and MS degrees from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and a PhD in Computer Science from Harvard University.

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Simon Harris

Head of Systematic Equity

Mr. Harris is Head of GMO’s Systematic Equity team and is a partner of the firm. In his decades at GMO, Simon has had extensive portfolio management, quantitative research, and team leadership experience including as the head of the Global Equity team and head of the UK Equity team prior to its merger with Global Equity. Previously, he also served as co-CEO of GMO UK Ltd. Prior to joining GMO in 1989, he earned his BSc in Mathematics from The City University (London). Mr. Harris is a Fellow of The Chartered Institute for Securities & Investment.

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Roy Henriksson

Head of Investment Risk and Trading

Dr. Henriksson is the Head of Investment Risk and Trading at GMO and a partner of the firm. He has decades of experience combining quantitative research with its practical applications within investment portfolios across a wide range of equity, fixed income, and multi-asset strategies. Prior to joining GMO, Dr. Henriksson served as Chief Investment Officer (CIO) of QMA, where he oversaw all dimensions of QMA’s investment strategies. Prior to that, he was the CIO of Advanced Portfolio Management, where he designed and managed customized, risk-targeted investment portfolios for institutional clients across the globe. Previously, he also held a variety of senior positions in investments, risk management, research, trading, and product development at a number of large investment banks. He also has served as the Co-Chairman of the Liquidity Risk Committee and as a member of the advisory board of the International Association for Quantitative Finance. Dr. Henriksson is a recipient of the Graham and Dodd Award from The Financial Analysts Journal and previously was a Professor of Finance at the University of California, Berkeley. He has also served as a Senior Consultant to Wells Fargo Investment Advisors and as an Advisor to the University of California Endowment. He earned his BS in Economics, MS in Management, and PhD in Finance from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

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Jason Hotra

Head of Developed Rates & FX

Mr. Hotra is the Head of GMO's Developed Rates & FX team and is a Portfolio Manager of the team's strategies. Prior to joining GMO in 2015, he was a Portfolio Manager at Convexity Capital Management. Previously, he was a Director at Sowood Capital Management. Mr. Hotra earned his bachelor's degree in Management Science with focus in Finance from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

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Ben Inker

Co-Head of Asset Allocation

Mr. Inker is co-head of GMO’s Asset Allocation team, a member of the GMO Board of Directors and a partner of the firm. He joined GMO in 1992 following the completion of his bachelor's degree in Economics from Yale University. In his years at GMO, Mr. Inker has served as an analyst for the Quantitative Equity and Asset Allocation teams, as a portfolio manager of several equity and asset allocation portfolios, as co-head of International Quantitative Equities, and as CIO of Quantitative Developed Equities. He is a CFA charterholder.

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Tracey Keenan

Head of Short Duration Strategies

Ms. Keenan is the portfolio manager of GMO’s cash strategies and fixed income team lead for GMO’s Trading team. She is a partner of the firm. Previously at GMO, she was a member of the Fixed Income team, focusing on trading FX, EM and Domestic repo, and government bonds. Prior to joining GMO in 2002, she was a Fixed Income Trader at Standish Mellon. Ms. Keenan earned her bachelor's degree in Political Science from Stonehill College and her MBA in Finance from Suffolk University.

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Dan Mahoney

Head of Trading

Mr. Mahoney is the Head of GMO’s trading team. Prior to assuming his current responsibilities, he was responsible for trading and process oversight for GMO’s Emerging Markets Equity team. Previously at GMO, he was a trader for the Emerging Markets Equity team and joined GMO as a member of the Data Management and Corporate Actions team. Prior to joining GMO in 2000, he was a senior trust specialist with Mellon Trust’s corporate actions group. Mr. Mahoney earned his B.S. in Business Administration from Merrimack College.

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Deborah Ng

Head of ESG and Sustainability

Ms. Ng is the Head of ESG and Sustainability at GMO. Prior to joining GMO in 2022, she was the Head of Responsible Investing at Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan (OTPP), where she spent more than 18 years. At OTPP, Ms. Ng developed and led the Plan’s Responsible Investing Strategy and climate change initiatives and headed OTPP’s Responsible Investing team. She was responsible for key deliverables across several pillars, including climate change and ESG thought leadership and innovation, ESG integration frameworks and tools, and corporate engagement. Ms. Ng and her team also provided insights and subject-matter expertise to the global direct investment teams. Previously at OTPP, Ms. Ng was part of OTPP’s Strategy & Asset Mix team, where she focused on the research, evaluation, and introduction of innovative asset allocation strategies designed to help meet the Plan’s long-term liability objectives. Ms. Ng currently sits on the Investment Committee of the United Church Pension Plan and is a past board member of the Global Real Estate Sustainability Benchmark (GRESB BV). Prior to her years at OTPP, she founded Acuity Communications, assisting investment firms such as UBS Securities, CIBC WM, and Desjardins Securities with their investment research requirements. Ms. Ng earned her Bachelor of Commerce and Master of Finance from the University of Toronto, where she was also awarded with a Directors Award from the Rotman School of Management. She is a CFA charterholder.

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George Sakoulis

Head of Investment Teams, Portfolio Manager, Systematic Equity

Dr. Sakoulis is the Head of Investment Teams at GMO and a partner of the firm. He previously worked at GMO from 2009 to 2014 leading quantitative research for GMO’s Emerging Markets Equity team. Prior to rejoining GMO in 2020, he was most recently a Managing Director and Head of Global Multi-Asset Solutions for QMA, where he focused on systematic total and absolute return investment solutions. Before that, he led QMA’s Global Portfolio Solutions group. Previously, Dr. Sakoulis also served as the Director of European Equity Strategies for Numeric Investors and as a Director for UBS O’Connor. He earned his bachelor's degree in Economics and Statistics from San Francisco State University and his MA in Economics and PhD in Financial Econometrics from the University of Washington.

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John Thorndike

Co-Head of Asset Allocation

Mr. Thorndike is co-head of GMO’s Asset Allocation team and a partner of the firm. Mr. Thorndike currently oversees asset selection and portfolio construction decisions, as well as team management responsibilities. Prior to joining GMO in 2015, he was a managing director and Deputy CIO at The Investment Fund for Foundations. Previously, he was an analyst with TIFF. Mr. Thorndike earned his bachelor's degree in Physics from Bowdoin College.

Vandersteel_Tina

Tina Vandersteel

Head of Emerging Country Debt

Ms. Vandersteel is the head of GMO’s Emerging Country Debt team. Prior to joining GMO in 2004, she worked at J.P. Morgan in fixed income research developing quantitative arbitrage strategies for emerging debt and high yield bonds. She began her career at Morgan Guaranty Trust, attending Morgan Finance Program #18, before establishing her career in emerging debt. Ms. Vandersteel earned her B.A. in Economics from Washington & Lee University. She is a CFA charterholder.