Professional Background:

I was part of Morgan Stanley's fixed-income derivatives group, where I helped develop Morgan Stanley's proprietary trading franchise and risk profile in derivatives, fixed income and foreign exchange in the European time zone. Prior to my six years at Morgan Stanley, I worked at Vereinsbank AG and Christiania Bank.

Day-to-Day Responsibilities:

Managing the fund, which includes trading for the positions we already have and also doing research and investment-idea generation.

Education:

Studied political science and international relations in the law department at the University of Athens (Greece).

BIG PICTURE

Biggest trading opportunities for the firm?

It's probably our short-term, tactical momentum trading. Flows have gotten very big, so smaller, more-agile funds such as [North Asset] have the ability to step into and out of positions very quickly. That's what we've been successful with over the past couple of years. And as the industry will tend to be dominated by bigger and bigger funds, the potential to trade tactically will be there.

Difference between trading for an alternative investment firm vs. trading for a traditional asset manager?

You have to be able to transact a lot faster and make decisions without having the luxury of doing all the research you'd like to do. The other thing is that the industry, at the end of the day, is a lot less forgiving than the traditional asset management industry in the sense that people in the latter have more of a benchmark mentality, while in the hedge fund industry people are looking at your returns on a weekly basis. There is much higher necessity to be focused on the short-term, not only the long-term, trades.

What is the most challenging aspect of your job?

The ability to trade for the fund and manage the portfolio on a constant basis while at the same time being able to take a step back and focus on long-term secular themes that are out there; the difficulty of focusing on the tree while at the same time making sure that you realize you're in a very big forest.

Major Industry Trend

There are a lot of funds in the industry above $10 billion and a lot of funds trying to employ a very diversified portfolio. And I think there's a big question mark whether they'll be effective in terms of deploying the capital in a diversified manner. There are a lot of management issues that the hedge fund industry will have to deal with when they become bigger and manage that kind of capital, which, at the end of the day, people have to appreciate is not locked-in capital. There are a lot of funds that are setting themselves up as mini-investment banks to warehouse longer-term risk, and there's a good chance they might succeed. But I still have questions about whether that will be achieved without some problems.