Top CFOs is pleased to announce The Top 25 Hedge Fund Investors of 2022. The greatest investors have long track records of generating market-beating returns. Many of this year’s awardees leveraged limited capital to grow their hedge funds into some of the largest in the world, and several have founded and led multiple profitable funds. Their successes, in turn, have enriched their clients and attracted even more capital.
Ray Dalio started his hedge fund, Bridgewater Associates, in his apartment and has built it into the largest fund in the world. Meanwhile, John Overdeck and David Siegel have used artificial intelligence, distributed computing, and machine learning to guide the investment strategy of Two Sigma’s $60 billion in assets. And Israel Englander has grown Millennium Management into a multinational firm with more than $57 billion under management and more than 3,000 employees in offices in the United States, Europe, and Asia.
This year’s awardees come from a variety of backgrounds, from academia to trading, consulting, private equity, and other areas. But what they have in common is their demonstrated skill in delivering the best returns for their clients. Please join us in recognizing the achievements of The Top 25 Hedge Fund Investors of 2022.
1. Ray Dalio, Bridgewater Associates
Ray Dalio, Founder of Bridgewater Associates, is a legendary investor and hedge fund manager. Bridgewater, the world's largest hedge fund, manages some $223 billion in assets as of November 2021. Dalio serves as the firm’s Co-chairman and Co-Chief Investment Officer and is also a Director on its Operating Board of Directors. He is a 50-year veteran of global macroeconomic investing, founding Bridgewater from his New York City apartment in 1975 and growing it into one of the world’s largest investment firms.
As a philanthropist, Dalio has given at least $5 billion to various causes, with his Dalio Foundation supporting microfinance, inner-city education initiatives, polio eradication, and other causes. He is also a committed member of Bill Gates and Warren Buffett’s Giving Pledge, promising to donate more than half of his fortune to charity in his lifetime. He holds a Master’s in Business Administration from Harvard Business School and a Bachelor’s in Finance from the C.W. Post College of Long Island University.
2. James Simons, Renaissance Technologies
Jim Simons is more than merely an investor — he is a renowned mathematician, former professor, and innovator of quantitative investing. In 1982, Simons founded Renaissance Technologies (RenTech), an American hedge fund that specializes in systematic trading using quantitative models derived from mathematical and statistical analysis. The firm’s Medallion Fund is well-known as one of Wall Street’s most successful hedge funds of all time, contributing to Simons’ reputation as a market expert. RenTech had an estimated $130 billion in assets under management in April 2021.
Prior to founding RenTech, Simons was the chair of the Department of Mathematics at Stony Brook University; he also previously taught mathematics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University. In 1974, he developed the Chern-Simons form (with Shiing-Shen Chern) and has contributed significantly to the development of string theory. He received a PhD in Mathematics from the University of California, Berkeley and a Bachelor's in Mathematics from MIT.
3. Chase Coleman III, Tiger Global Management
Chase Coleman III is the Founder and a Partner of Tiger Global Management. He started out as a hedge fund investor, but his firm has evolved into a broader investment firm. Tiger Global Management oversees some $65 billion in assets, and its venture capital arm is now its biggest unit. Coleman serves as Portfolio Manager for both the public equity and private equity businesses.
Prior to founding Tiger Global in 2001, Coleman was a Partner at Tiger Management LLC, where he worked for hedge fund legend Julian Robertson. He is former Co-chairman and current member of the Board of Directors of the Tiger Foundation, which seeks to break the cycle of poverty in New York City. He is also a member of the Board of Trustees of the Hospital for Special Surgery, where he is Co-chairman of the Investment Committee. Chase received a Bachelor of Art in Economics and Spanish from Williams College.
4. John Overdeck, Two Sigma Investments (tie)
John Overdeck is a Co-founder of Two Sigma Investments, a quantitative trading powerhouse with $60 billion in assets under management. New York-based Two Sigma is a data-driven fund that absorbs large amounts of information to predict the prices of securities. It uses a variety of technological methods, including artificial intelligence, distributed computing, and machine learning, for its trading strategies
Previously, John served as a Vice President at Amazon and a Managing Director at D.E. Shaw & Co. He is the Chairman of the National Museum of Mathematics, a Director at both the Institute for Advanced Study and the Robin Hood Foundation, and serves on the advisory board of Khan Academy. He attended Stanford University, where he received a Bachelor of Science in Mathematics and a Master of Science in Statistics.
4. David Siegel, Two Sigma Investments (tie)
David Siegel co-founded Two Sigma Investments with the belief that innovative technology and data science could help discover value in the world’s data. Today, Two Sigma manages $60 billion in assets and drives transformations across the financial services industry in investment management, venture capital, private equity, and insurance.
Born in the Bronx, Siegel is a computer fanatic and got his start working at hedge funds D.E. Shaw and Tudor Investments. Siegel started his charitable foundation, Siegel Family Endowment, in 2011 with the goal of supporting organizations (like the MIT Center for Brains, Minds and Machines) and leaders that will understand and shape the impact of technology on society. He received his PhD in Computer Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he conducted research at the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, and a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from Princeton.
5. David Shaw, D.E. Shaw
Dr. David E. Shaw serves as Chief Scientist of D. E. Shaw Research and as a Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Computational Biology and Bioinformatics at Columbia University. After serving on the faculty of the Computer Science Department at Columbia until 1986, he started his own hedge fund, D. E. Shaw & Co, in 1988. D.E. Shaw harnesses proprietary algorithms for securities trading and currently has more than $55 billion in assets under management.
Dr. Shaw was appointed to the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology twice; by President Clinton in 1994, and again by President Obama in 2009. He has twice been awarded the ACM Gordon Bell Prize, was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2007, to the National Academy of Engineering in 2012, and to the National Academy of Sciences in 2014. Dr. Shaw earned his PhD from Stanford University and a Bachelor's Degree from the University of California, San Diego.
6. Israel Englander, Millennium Management
Israel Englander is the Founder of Millennium Management, one of the world's largest alternative asset management firms with more than $57 billion under management. Englander co-founded Millennium in 1989 with Ronald Shear, seeding the company with $35 million. Since founding the firm, it has grown to more than 3,000 employees in more than 12 offices in the United States, Europe, and Asia.
Prior to founding Millennium, Englander was a floor broker, trader, and specialist on the American Stock Exchange, forming the floor brokerage I.A. Englander & Co. He served as Chairman of the Specialist Association and has been on numerous American Stock Exchange committees, including allocation procedures, emerging company marketplace, options, and special allocations. He attended the New York University Graduate School of Business Administration and received his Bachelor of Science in Finance from New York University.
7. Paul Singer, Elliott Management
Founder, Co-chief Executive Officer, and President of Elliott Management Paul Singer has earned a reputation as a philanthropist and activist investor. Heralded as one of the savviest and toughest money managers of his day, he has also offered financial support to LGBTQ+ communities. Singer leveraged $1.3 million in 1977 to found Elliott, and it has approximately $51.5 billion in assets under management as of December 31, 2021.
Singer makes regular donations to Jewish and pro-Israel causes, including BBYO and Hillel, and has given roughly $300 million to his Paul E. Singer Foundation since 2010. He also co-founded Start-Up Nation Central in addition to serving as Chairman of the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research. For his various philanthropic pursuits, he was honored with the William E. Simon Prize for Philanthropic Leadership in 2018. Singer earned a Juris Doctor from Harvard Law School and a Bachelor of Science in Psychology from the University of Rochester.
8. Ken Griffin, Citadel
American hedge fund investor and entrepreneur Ken Griffin is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Citadel LLC, a Chicago-based hedge fund and financial services company. As a global alternative investment firm, Citadel is one of the largest firms of its kind, boasting more than $47 billion in assets under management. In addition to his role as CEO, Griffin is the firm’s Co-Chief Investment Officer and a majority owner.
Griffin began trading stocks from his Harvard dorm room before founding Citadel in 1990. He has led the firm ever since. He is an active philanthropist and serves on the board of trustees for the Art Institute of Chicago, the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and The University of Chicago. Griffin holds a Bachelor’s in Economics from Harvard University, where he currently serves as a member of the executive committee and financial aid committee.
9. Paul Tudor Jones, Tudor Investment Corporation
Paul Tudor Jones II founded Tudor Investment Corporation in 1980 and now serves as its Chief Investment Officer. He is one of the pioneers of the modern-day hedge fund industry and is known for his macro trades, particularly his bets on interest rates and currencies. His firm now manages an estimated $44.6 billion in assets.
Jones got his start at his father’s small business paper, the Memphis Daily News. He wrote for the paper while in high school and college under the name Paul Eagle. Jones traded cotton futures at the New York Cotton Exchange under the guidance of the distinguished cotton trader Eli Tullis. In 1988, he cofounded the Robin Hood Foundation, with the goal of reducing poverty in New York City. Jones earned his Bachelor’s in Economics from the University of Virginia and was accepted into Harvard Business School, but did not attend.
10. Christopher Hohn, The Children’s Investment Fund Management (TCI)
Sir Christopher Hohn is a British hedge fund manager, philanthropist, and Founder of The Children’s Investment Fund Management (TCI), a London-based hedge fund management firm established in 2003. The firm was founded to help fund the Children's Investment Fund Foundation UK (CIFF), a philanthropic organization benefitting underprivileged children in developing countries. TCI boasts more than $40 billion in assets under management, and through TCI’s investments and other donations, CIFF has acquired assets in excess of $6 billion.
Prior to founding TCI and CIFF, Hohn worked on Wall Street for Perry Capital before heading the firm’s London operations. Previously, he worked for the private equity group Apax Partners. He is a prolific philanthropist who is actively involved in climate change and child poverty initiatives. He holds a Master’s in Business Administration from Harvard University and earned an undergraduate degree in Accounting and Business Economics from Southampton University.
11. Daniel Sundheim, D1 Capital Partners
Daniel Sundheim is the Founder and Chief Investment Officer of D1 Capital Partners, a New York-based investment firm specializing in public and private markets. Founded in 2018, D1 Capital Partners boasts more than $34 billion of assets under management, investing primarily in the global internet, technology, telecom, media, consumer, healthcare, financial, industrial, and real estate sectors.
Prior to forming D1, Sundheim spent 15 years at Viking Global Investors, where he most recently served as the CIO responsible for managing a team of analysts and a diversified portfolio. He is a member of the Board of Trustees of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), NYU Langone Medical Center, and Columbia Grammar and Preparatory School. He holds a Bachelor of Science in Economics from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.
12. Daniel Och, Willoughby Capital
Daniel Och is the Founder and Chairman of the family office Willoughby Capital. He currently oversees Willoughby Capital’s multibillion-dollar portfolio spanning private equity, venture capital, public equity, credit, and real estate. Och began his career at Goldman Sachs in 1982. In 1994, Och left Goldman and founded Och-Ziff Capital Management with $100 million of capital from the Ziff Family. During Och’s 26-year tenure as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Och-Ziff, assets under management grew to more than $50 billion.
Och is a dedicated philanthropist and serves on the boards of several charities, including the Robin Hood Foundation and the New York-Presbyterian Hospital, where his foundation recently endowed the Daniel and Jane Och Spine Hospital. Och is also a member of the Wharton Board of Overseers, the Board of The Museum of Modern Art, and serves as a Trustee of the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Foundation. He is an active supporter of Israel and Jewish causes through his work with UJA-Federation New York and Birthright Israel. Och earned a Bachelor of Science in Finance from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.
13. Seth Klarman, Baupost Group
Seth Klarman runs Boston-based hedge fund Baupost. With $30 billion in assets under management, Baupost is one of the largest hedge funds in the world. Klarman is seen as an expert in value investing. He authored the book Margin of Safety: Risk-averse Value Investing Strategies for the Thoughtful Investor, which is considered a cult classic among investors.
Klarman is also an avid philanthropist. In 1991, he founded the Klarman Family Foundation, which donates primarily to medical causes, Jewish organizations, and Israeli causes. As of the latest public filing, the foundation’s assets are $640 million. In 2008, Klarman was inducted into Institutional Investors Alpha's Hedge Fund Manager Hall of Fame. He graduated with a Master’s in Business Administration from Harvard University and magna cum laude with a Bachelor’s in Economics from Cornell University.
14. Bruce Kovner, Caxton Associates
Bruce Kovner is the Founder and former Chairman of Caxton Associates, a global macro hedge fund which currently has $25.7 billion in assets under management. After nearly three decades at the head of Caxton, Kovner retired in 2011. Currently, he is the Chairman of CAM Capital, which he founded in 2012. CAM manages Kovner’s personal investment, trading, and business portfolios.
Kovner established the Kovner Foundation in 1996 to promote excellence in the arts and education, the defense of private enterprise and protection of individual rights, and scholarly studies and research that strengthen American democratic principles. A longtime backer of the conservative think tank the American Enterprise Institute, Kovner is also Chairman of the Juilliard School and Vice Chairman of the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. He is on the boards of the Metropolitan Opera and the American Enterprise Institute. Kovner obtained his Bachelor of Arts in Government from Harvard University in 1966.
15. Steven Cohen, Point72 Asset Management
Steven Cohen is the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Point72, a hedge fund and investment advisory based in Stamford, Connecticut. Cohen founded SAC Capital Advisors in 1992 and converted his investment operations to the Point72 Asset Management family office in 2014. Since its inception, Point72 has grown into an approximately $24.2 billion fund with more than 1,500 professionals in its employ. He also founded Point72 Ventures, a global venture capital fund, and Point72 Hyperscale, a private equity firm that seeks to drive value creation through applied AI.
Cohen began his investing career at Gruntal & Co., where he managed proprietary capital for 14 years before starting his own investment business. In 2020, he purchased the New York Mets, where he is currently the Chief Executive officer and Chairman. He holds a Bachelor’s in Economics from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.
16. Ryan Tolkin, Schonfeld Strategic Advisors
Since 2021, Ryan Tolkin has served as Chief Executive Officer of Schonfeld Strategic Advisors, a global multi-manager platform that invests its capital with Internal and Partner portfolio managers. Tolkin, who joined Schonfeld in 2013, is also a member of the firm’s three-person Executive Committee, joining Chief Operating Officer Andrew Fishman and Chief Strategy Officer Danielle Pizzo. In addition to his role as CEO, he is also the firm’s Chief Investment Officer. Founded in 1998, the New York-based firm manages approximately $22 billion in assets.
Tolkin leads the Investment and Capital Allocation team and oversees the Risk, Business Analytics, and Business Development teams. Prior to joining Schonfeld, Tolkin worked as part of the Corporate Credit Trading team at Goldman Sachs, where he was responsible for managing the Energy/Utilities and REITs portfolios. He holds a Bachelor’s in Economics from Duke University.
17. Daniel Loeb, Third Point
With nearly 40 years of experience in investment management, Daniel Loeb is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Third Point, a New York-based asset management firm he launched in 1995. Loeb is known for launching activist campaigns against corporate boards, replacing inefficient management, and returning organizations to profitability. Based in New York and with offices in the United States, India, Hong Kong, and London, Third Point boasts more than $17 billion in assets under management.
Before founding Third Point, Loeb began his investment management career with Warburg Pincus before moving to Lafer Equity Investors and Citigroup. Outside of his professional life, he is involved in education and criminal justice reform; he also leads the Margaret and Daniel Loeb Foundation, which supports these causes, as well as supporting Alzheimer’s research and more. He holds a Bachelor’s in Economics from Columbia University.
18. Bill Ackman, Pershing Square Capital Management
A vocal and influential leader in global investing, Bill Ackman is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Pershing Square Capital Management, a New York-based hedge fund management company. Ackman launched Pershing Square in 2004 with $54 million in personal funding. Now with more than $13 billion in assets under management, the firm is a concentrated research-intensive fundamental value investor in long and occasionally short investments in the public markets.
Prior to establishing Pershing Square, Ackman co-founded Gotham Partners Management Company, an investment adviser that managed public and private equity hedge fund portfolios. Before Gotham Partners, he began his career in real estate investment banking at Ackman Brothers & Singer, Inc. Ackman received a Master’s in Business Administration from Harvard Business School and a Bachelor of Arts from Harvard College. He is also a member of the Board of Dean’s Advisors of Harvard Business School.
19. John Paulson, Paulson & Co.
Queens native John Paulson founded Paulson & Co. in 1994. It enjoyed success as a niche fund until 2007, when he earned almost $4 billion by using credit default swaps to bet against the U.S. subprime mortgage lending market. In July 2020, Paulson announced that he would be returning capital to investors and converting his hedge fund into a family office. Paulson & Co. managed $38 billion at its peak in 2011, but as a family office its assets are now approximately $8.7 billion.
Prior to founding Paulson & Co., Paulson had stints at several firms, including Boston Consulting Group and Bear Stearns. He earned his Master’s in Business Administration from Harvard Business School and graduated valedictorian and summa cum laude with an undergraduate degree in Finance from New York University's College of Business and Public Administration.
20. Karthik Sarma, SRS Investment Management
Karthik Sarma is the Managing Partner and Founder of SRS Investment Management, a New York-based hedge fund with more than $8.4 billion in assets under management. Sarma founded SRS in 2006, and the firm currently holds a 43% stake in the Avis Budget Group, an American car rental company with a market cap of $15 billion. Since the investment in Avis, SRS has seen significant growth, thanks in part to the company’s planned investment in electric vehicles.
Prior to founding SRS, Sarma was a Managing Director at Tiger Global, a technology-focused investment firm. He began his career as a consultant for McKinsey & Co. He holds a Master of Science from Princeton University and a Bachelor of Technology in Mechanical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras.
21. Larry Robbins, Glenview Capital Management
Larry Robbins is the Chief Executive Officer of Glenview Capital Management, which currently has $6.1 billion in assets under management. He is also the Chair of Longview, a sponsor of multiple SPACs that has managed to raise well over $1 billion in capital to date. Additionally, Robbins is Chair of Longview Acquisition Corp II and a Board Member of Butterfly Network. Before founding Glenview, Robbins was as an Analyst and Partner at Omega Advisors on their U.S. equity long/short team after beginning his career at Gleacher & Company, a merger and advisory boutique.
Robbins and his wife use their Robbins Family Foundation to support education reform in New York City and on a national scale. He also serves as Chairman of the Board of KIPP New York and is a Board Member of the Robin Hood Foundation. Robbins is currently the Senior Chair of the Wall Street Division of the UJA-Federation. Robbins holds a Bachelor of Science in Economics and Engineering from the Wharton School and Moore School of the University of Pennsylvania.
22. David Tepper, Appaloosa Management
David Tepper is the Founder and President of Appaloosa Management, which he established with Jack Walton in 1993. Headquartered in Miami, Florida, Appaloosa Management is an American hedge fund investing in public equity and fixed income markets around the world. While at its peak Appaloosa managed more than $20 billion in assets, in 2019, Tepper completed the conversion of Appaloosa to a family office, which now manages approximately $5 billion. Over the course of nearly 30 years, Tepper and his firm have become renowned for their success in hedge fund investing, outperforming industry peers and global markets alike.
Prior to founding Appaloosa, Tepper was a Credit Analyst and then Head Trader at Goldman Sachs. He began his career with the treasury department of Republic Steel and at Keystone Mutual Funds. Tepper currently owns the Carolina Panthers of the National Football League, and is the namesake patron of the Tepper School of Business at Carnegie Mellon University. He holds a Master of Science in Industrial Administration from Carnegie Mellon University and a Bachelor’s in Economics from the University of Pittsburgh.
23. Richard Mashaal, RIMA Senvest Management
Richard Mashaal is the Founder, Chief Executive Officer, and Co-chief Investment Officer of RIMA Senvest Management, which is responsible for the day-to-day management of both Senvest Partners and Senvest Israel Partners. Mashaal founded the investment advisory firm in 1997, and he remains involved in all aspects of its business. Senvest uses a value-based investment strategy across approximately $3 billion in assets under management, making notable investments in GameStop and other ventures.
Before forming Senvest Management, Mashaal worked for Senvest Capital, the investment fund founded by his father, Victor Mashaal. Prior to that, he began his career at Dean Witter Reynolds in New York in the private finance group. He holds a Master’s in Business Administration from The University of Chicago and an undergraduate degree from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.
24. Robert Bishop, Impala Asset Management
With more than 35 years of investing experience, Bob Bishop is the Founder and Chief Investment Officer of Impala Asset Management, an American firm that manages about $1.5 billion in assets and invests in global cyclical equities. Bishop founded Impala in 2004 as an alternative investment management firm focused on industrials, materials, consumer discretionary, and energy sectors. The firm operates offices in New York, Connecticut, and Florida.
Bishop has been in the finance industry since 1986, when he joined Salomon Brothers as an Equity Analyst. He has served as the CIO for Soros Fund Management, as well as in management roles with Kingdon Capital and Tiger Management. He holds a Master’s in Business Administration in Finance from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and a Bachelor’s in Political Science from Northwestern University.
25. William Heard, Heard Capital
With more than 15 years of experience as a financial services leader, William Heard is the Chief Executive Officer and Chief Investment Officer of Heard Capital, leading the firm's investment process and strategic direction. He founded the firm in 2010, and he has helped grow Heard’s assets under management from $35 million to more than $300 million. Headquartered in Chicago, the firm focuses on investing in public equities in the technology, media, telecommunication, financial, and industrial sectors.
Prior to founding his namesake firm, Heard was a Special Situations Analyst for Stark Investments, a global alternative investment firm. While at Stark Investments, he covered the telecommunications, media, technology, financials, and energy sectors. He is an active philanthropist, and he serves on the City Year Chicago Board of Directors. He holds a Bachelor of Science in Finance and Real Estate from the Marquette University College of Business Administration.
