Bloomberg 6th Annual Diversity Drives Returns

Les Brun is Founder, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Ariel Alternatives, LLC, where he also chairs the investment committee. He has over 42 years of investment banking, commercial banking and financial advisory experience, including as founder, CEO and chairman emeritus of Hamilton Lane, a leading global private markets investment management firm. In addition to his role at Ariel Alternatives, Les is chairman and chief executive officer of Sarr Group, LLC, a diversified holding company for his personal investments. He is currently lead director of Broadridge Financial Solutions, Inc., serves on the board of directors of Corning, Inc. and the advisory board of Guardian Capital Partners GP, LP. He is also a senior advisor to G100 and World 50, a private platform of peer-to-peer communities for senior executives and directors from some of the world’s largest companies, and an advisor in Bank of America’s enterprise executive development program, where he helps coach and develop executives. Les serves as a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Les has extensive experience as a corporate director and was formerly lead director of Merck & Co., Inc., chairman of the board of directors of CDK Global, Inc., chairman of the board of directors of Automatic Data Processing, Inc., and chair of the compensation committee of Hewlett Packard Enterprise. He was a board member of the Richcourt Group, a Hamilton Lane company specializing in hedge fund of funds management. In addition, he was chairman of the U.S. Small Business Administration SBIC advisory council, and a member of the committee for the reinvention of the Small Business Administration. Les holds a BS from the State University of New York at Buffalo, where he has been recognized as a distinguished alumnus. Les was previously named by the NACD as one of America’s top 100 corporate directors and was inducted into the 2019 business hall of fame for Philadelphia Inquirer’s industry icons.

Mimi Duff is a Senior Client Advisor at GenTrust and part of our Advisory Team. Mimi’s responsibilities include developing and serving institutions, high net worth individuals and family relationships. Prior to joining GenTrust, Mimi amassed more than 20 years of experience in the banking and finance industry, specializing in U.S. Fixed Income portfolio management, trading, research, and strategy. She began her career at Goldman Sachs in 1993 and spent 11 years in the New York and London offices in the Fixed Income, Currency and Commodities divisions. She focused on the USD rates businesses and ran several trading and syndicate desks in New York and London, following some foundational years in Research, Global Bond Indexing and Asset Allocation. In 2004, Mimi was hired by Barclays Capital to run their Interest Rate Swaps Trading desk, where she significantly expanded their franchise footprint through expertise, execution, and trade idea generation. In 2010, Duff joined Tudor Investment Corporation as the U.S. fixed income portfolio manager and strategist within the Flow of Funds Research and Trading Group. The group covered all major macro asset classes including global fixed income, equities, FX and commodities. Since leaving Tudor, Mimi has worked as a consultant, most recently as a Fixed Income Product manager for Kensho Technologies, an artificial intelligence and machine learning company. Mimi graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in Operations Research and Industrial Engineering from Cornell University. Mimi is also a frequent contributor to CNBC and Bloomberg news, and lives in Greenwich, CT with her husband and four daughters.

Mr. Grain is the Chief Executive Officer and Founder of Grain Management. 

Prior to founding Grain in 2007, Mr. Grain led Pinnacle Towers (later renamed Global Signal) from bankruptcy to a successful IPO, transforming it into one of the largest independent wireless communication tower companies in the world. Prior to Global Signal, Mr. Grain served as Senior Vice President of AT&T Broadband’s New England Region and was an Executive Director in the High Yield Finance Department at Morgan Stanley.

Mr. Grain is the Lead Independent Director of Southern Company’s Board of Directors, Independent Director of Dell Technologies, Director of New Fortress Energy, Fiduciary Trustee of the Brookings Institution, a member of the Advisory Council of the National Museum of African American History and Culture, Vice Chair of the Board of the Martha’s Vineyard Museum, and member of the Dartmouth Board of Trustees. He was appointed as a member of the National Infrastructure Advisory Council in 2011 and again in 2024 and is a lifetime member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Mr. Grain holds an M.B.A. from the Amos Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College, where he serves on the Board of Advisors. He holds a B.A. in English from the College of the Holy Cross, where he served for eight years as a Trustee.

Ivelina Green is the Founder and CIO of Pearlstone Alternative, a London-based credit asset manager focused on special situations and distressed investing. Ivelina and her team seek idiosyncratic opportunities with high execution complexity in companies which have come under cyclical and structural pressure.

Ivelina has over 19 years investing experience in Special Situations and European Credit.

Prior to launching Pearlstone, Ivelina was a Partner at CQS where she headed the Global Special Situations Group from July 2015 to September 2021.

In this capacity, she built and managed a global team of dedicated special situations analysts based in London, New York and Hong Kong. Over the years Ivelina and her team led many deal negotiations in loan-to-own and rescue financing situations where her relationships with traditional leverage finance lenders allowed for amicable solutions, sometimes in unfriendly jurisdictions.

Ivelina started her career at Goldman Sachs in 2004 in New York and later moved to London in 2007 where she rose to head the European Distressed Debt Trading business.

Ivelina has been actively involved in various Female Leadership and Mentoring Initiatives seeking to promote women in finance throughout her career. She was named to the Hedge Fund Journal’s Leading Women in Hedge Funds in 2018. She was also recognized in the HFJ’s Global Report of Leading Portfolio Managers for 2021. Ivelina was recently named to the 2023 List of Women at the Forefront of Alternative Investments.

She was a Wien Scholar and holds a BA magna cum laude in Economics with concentrations in Mathematics, International Business and International Studies from Brandeis University.

Ms. Holsey focuses on private equity diverse manager investments and small and emerging manager investments. Prior to joining GCM Grosvenor, Ms. Holsey was President and Co-Founder of Susty Party, a consumer products company where she oversaw all aspects of the business including managing strategic relationships with key sales accounts, overseeing operations, new product development and production forecasting. Ms. Holsey began her career at Credit Suisse as an Analyst in Equity Sales and Trading before later joining the Customized Fund Investment Group as a private equity analyst focused on fund investments and co-investments. Ms. Holsey received her Bachelor of Arts in Economics from Harvard College.

Dr. Paul Judge is Managing Partner and Chairman of Open Opportunity Fund, a technology venture capital fund focused on investing in and partnering with outstanding Black and Latino founders. Paul has cofounded three companies that were acquired and has invested in over 100 technology startups. As an investor, Paul was Managing Partner of Panoramic Ventures and Cofounder of Tech Square Labs. As an entrepreneur, Paul is cofounder of Pindrop, a voice security company that protects some of the largest enterprises in the world and has received over $200 million of venture capital funding and cofounder of Greenwood, a fintech company providing banking services for minorities. For 15 years, Paul helped start and lead a series of successful cybersecurity companies. Paul was co-founder of Luma Home, a consumer WiFi company that was acquired in 2018. Paul was the Chief Research Officer and VP at Barracuda Networks through its IPO in 2013. In 2007 he founded Purewire and served as Chief Technology Officer; Purewire was acquired by Barracuda Networks in 2009. Prior to that Paul was the Chief Technology Officer at Cipher Trust, an email security company that was acquired by Secure Computing in 2006. At Secure Computing, Paul served as Chief Technology Officer and Senior Vice President. Prior to his tenure at Cipher Trust, Dr. Judge worked briefly with IBM and NASA. Paul is the lead inventor of over 30 patents and has received many accolades. He’s been named to Fortune Magazine’s “40 Under 40” list, MIT Technology Review Magazine’s “Top 100Innovators under 35”, Black Enterprise’s “50 Most Powerful Players Under 40”, and Info World’s “Top 25 CTOs”. He is a member of the 2016 Class of Henry Crown Fellows and the Aspen Global Leadership Network at the Aspen Institute. Dr. Judge holds a B.S. in Computer Science from Morehouse College and earned his Ph.D. and M.S. in Computer Science from Georgia Tech

Mina Pacheco Nazemi is the Head of the Diversified Alternative Equity team and serves on both the investment committee. She is also responsible for originating, underwriting and monitoring GP relationships, direct/co-investments, and continuation vehicle opportunities for private equity and real assets. Mina has worked in the industry since 1998 with experience as a General Partner and Limited Partner investor in private markets and focused on underwriting direct/coinvestment opportunities. Prior to joining the firm in 2017, Mina held several leadership and investment positions including Co-Founder and Partner at Aldea Capital Partners and Partner and Investment Committee Member at GCM Grosvenor Customized Fund Investment Group (formerly Credit Suisse CFIG). She is an alumna of Sponsors for Education Opportunity (SEO) and Robert Toigo Foundation. She also is a board member of the Pan American Development Fund and serves on the investment committee for the City of Hope and Cal State Los Angeles. Additionally, Mina is a current Finance Fellow for The Aspen Institute. Mina holds a Bachelor of Arts with honors in Economics and Political Science from Stanford University and her Master of Business Administration from Harvard Business School.

As President & CEO of AltFinance, Marcus Shaw leverages his 20+ years of experience in investment management, technology, and nonprofit leadership to develop strategies for growing diversity in the alternative investment industry through mentorship, partnerships, and financial support. He has led AltFinance since its inception and has overseen the growth of the AltFinance Fellowship to more than 100 students to date, the disbursement of more than $5.4 million in scholarships HBCU students and in institutional giving to support HBCU programs, and the launch of the AltFinance Institute, a partnership with the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania to bring top-tier financial curriculum, alternative investing training, and professional networking to all HBCU students and faculty across the country.

Tina Surh is Founder and CIO of Sonamu Group and invests with a broad and flexible charter across global asset classes and a simple purpose – sustained exceptional compounding – on behalf of a select group of family office and foundation partners. The central theme in Ms. Surh’s former CIO roles has been leading and accomplishing significant positive change: for New York University, where she is credited with transforming the endowment and producing leading risk-adjusted returns over a decade while building out a robust platform, and more recently for Gruss & Co.’s single-family office, leading a full program redesign and exceeding performance goals. Tina has also worked as a private equity investor, and started her career at Bain & Co. She graduated from Harvard Business School and from Tufts University, where she majored in drama and design, and is now a Trustee Emeritus. She serves on a variety of boards, including Salvation Army Investment Committee, Alliance for Young Artists & Writers, and Tufts Engineering School, and champions creativity applied to any vocation.

Peter T. Grauer joined Bloomberg, the global financial technology company that was founded in 1981, full time as chairman, president and CEO in March 2002. He was a member of the Bloomberg Board of Directors since October 1996 and was named chairman of the board in March 2001, succeeding Michael R. Bloomberg. 

Prior to joining Bloomberg, Grauer was a managing director of Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette from 1992 to 2000 when DLJ was acquired by Credit Suisse First Boston. He is a founder of DLJ Merchant Banking Partners and DLJ Investment Partners and also served as a managing director and senior partner of CSFB Private Equity. Grauer graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the Harvard University Graduate School of Business, Program for Management Development. 

He serves on the World Economic Forum’s Media, Entertainment and Information, Financial Services and Gender Parity Board of Governors. He is founding Chairman of the Community of Chairmen at the World Economic Forum. Grauer is also a member of the British American Business International Advisory Board.

Grauer is the President of the Board of Trustees of the Inner City Scholarship Fund in New York City and a member of the Partnership for Inner City Education Board of Directors. He serves as a member of the Board of Trustees of the Wildlife Conservation Society and the The WNET Group. 

He is founding Chairman of the U.S. 30% Club. Grauer is a member of the Board of the Prostate Cancer Foundation and is Chairman of the College Advising Corps. He is a trustee of The Economic Club of New York and Rockefeller University. 

Nabila Ahmed is team leader for global Equality coverage at Bloomberg News. Her team focuses on stories that elevate issues of race, gender, diversity and fairness within companies, governments and societies that Bloomberg News covers. She has been at the company for a decade, reporting on finance, deals and credit across print, television and radio from New York and Sydney.

Romaine Bostick co-hosts Bloomberg Television’s “The Close” from New York. Additionally, Bostick helps lead cross-asset financial market coverage across all Bloomberg News platforms.

Prior to joining Bloomberg Television, Bostick helped foster and manage the Bloomberg terminal’s TOPLive blogging platform as a newsroom editor.

With a background covering corporate finance, mortgage-backed securities and government policy, Bostick orchestrated newsroom coverage of seminal events, including: the 2002 Tyco CEO scandal; the dawn of credit-default swaps; the 2007-08 financial crisis; the 2012 Affordable Care Act implementation; and the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

Bostick also spearheaded a data mining project on more than 45,000 companies globally to monitor anomalies in earnings and cash flow trends.

Before joining Bloomberg, Bostick held various editing and reporting positions at Kiplinger, Washingtonpost.com and the Daily Herald (Illinois).

Breanne Dougherty is Bloomberg Intelligence’s Head of Thematic Strategy, a category building research product that brings a precision approach to macro perspectives and the equities landscape, available on the Bloomberg Professional service at BI THEME <GO>.

Before joining Bloomberg, Breanne was in a Global Narratives and Thought Leadership role at BlackRock, where she leveraged her 15 years in commodities and equities research to articulate issues at the nexus of market and investment trends. Breanne’s prior experience includes research leadership positions within the global energy groups of IHS Markit, Societe Generale and Wood Mackenzie.

Breanne holds a Bachelor of Commerce degree from McGill University in Montreal, Canada.