Wesley Barnes is the Head of Private Equity for Chicago Global.  He has lived in Asia for over 20 years as part of a career that has spanned private equity and management consulting in Japan, Hong Kong and Singapore.  He has spent 17 years in private equity, originating, executing and managing investments in Asia’s vibrant middle market on behalf of global blue-chip limited partners and major family offices. 

Mr. Barnes earned his MBA from the University of Chicago, Booth School of Business with concentrations in Finance and Accounting.  He also holds a Bachelor of Science from Georgetown University’s Walsh School of Foreign Service, with a concentration in International Finance and an Asian Studies certification.

David is partner at Chicago Global and serves as Head of Business Development. As Head of Business Development, David is responsible for the development of key investor relationships, corporate strategy, marketing and product management. David was previously Executive Director at LGT Capital Partners where he was responsible for strategy, asset raising and management of institutional relationships in Asia.

Prior to joining LGT Capital partners, he was Senior Vice President at SAIL Advisors, where he was involved with the group’s business development and corporate strategy initiatives. David also held roles with Morgan Stanley in New York, where he helped oversee Morgan Stanley’s corporate strategy and M&A activities, as well as with Fidelity Investments and Aragon Asset Management in portfolio management and business development. David earned a Master’s degree in International Finance from Columbia University in New York, and a Bachelor’s Degree in International Business & Economics from Eckerd College.

Karin is the Director of Sustainable Debt at NatureVest, the in-house impact investment team at the Nature Conservancy focusing on sourcing and structuring investment products. Karin has over 20 years of experience structuring investment vehicles and managing risk for Stumpf Energy, M+W Group, CleanPath Ventures, Municipal Mortgage & Equity and Accenture. Karin also led research on sustainable natural resources management and policy in the Brazilian Amazon in a partnership between IMAZON and the Ford Foundation. Karin completed her Bachelor of Arts in Latin American Studies from the University of Chicago in 1991, and received a dual Masters in Public Policy with a focus on taxation and public finance from the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy and an International MBA from the Booth School of Business in 2000.

Gaurav is the CEO of Kuvera.in, an online financial advisory service based out of Bangalore, India and has over 15 years of experience in investing in equity and debt markets. Prior to founding Kuvera, Gaurav worked at Morgan Stanley in New York City and Hong Kong, where he built expertise in developing and implementing proprietary quantitative investment strategies for credit and equity. He completed an MBA in Finance and Economics from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business in 2006, where he was a Siebel Scholar. He completed his undergraduate degree in Computer Science from IIT Delhi in 2000, where he was a SAIL Scholar.

Larry is the Gary P. Brinson director of research at the CFA Institute Research Foundation. Prior to that he was director of research at the Ford Foundation’s investment division for 15 years. Larry began his career at Ibbotson Associates in 1979 and left as a Managing Director after 15 years. He specializes in asset management and investment consulting and has served on various boards as both an adviser and a director. He has also served on the editorial board of the Financial Analysts Journal and currently serves on the editorial board of the Journal of Portfolio Management and Journal of Investing. Larry completed his Bachelor of Arts with Honors at the University of Chicago in 1975 and received an MBA in finance at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business in 1977.

Michael studies the economics of human resources and organizational design. He is co-author (with Edward Lazear) of the leading textbook in the field, Personnel Economics in Practice. The 3rd edition was published in 2014. It has been translated into Japanese, Korean, Bulgarian and Spanish, and a Chinese edition is forthcoming. Gibbs’s research has been published in the Quarterly Journal of Economics, Review of Economics & Statistics, Industrial & Labor Relations Review, Accounting Review, and other journals. Professor Gibbs is a Research Fellow of the Center for the Study of Labor (IZA) and the Institute for Compensation Studies. From 2012-2015, he was Faculty Director of Booth’s Executive MBA program. Michael earned an AB and AM in 1984 and a Ph.D. in economics in 1989, all from the University of Chicago.

Ivan Chelebiev is a portfolio manager with Chicago Global Capital in charge of the Chicago Global Strategies fund. Mr. Ivan Chelebiev has over 20 years of experience in asset management. His career began on Wall Street in 1999 and took him to Europe and Asia in various portfolio management and research capacities, spanning equities, bonds, and their derivatives. He helped start the hedge fund research group at Morgan Stanley, which led to the creation of indices and portfolios that stimulated the acceptance of alternative investments in institutional portfolios. He conducted due diligence and quantitative analysis on hundreds of hedge funds. He was one of the principal authors of MSCI’s Hedge Fund Index Methodology.

He evaluated and directed investments in relative value hedge funds while at Financial Risk Management LLC, ultimately helping to manage over US$700 million. As a portfolio manager with LGT Capital Partners, he ran top-down sector allocation an investment selection for a US$1.2 billion hedge fund portfolio. After the fall of Lehman Brothers in 2008, he launched a private investment partnership that made direct investments across three dimensions: equity, credit, and volatility.

Mr. Chelebiev earned two master’s degrees from the University of Chicago with a concentration in finance. He also holds a bachelor’s degree Summa Cum Laude from Oklahoma City University.

Ben is the Head of Data Analytics at Chicago Global and an assistant professor of finance at the National University of Singapore where he teaches International Finance and Economics at the masters and undergraduate level. He has worked at Citadel Investment Group, teaching research skills and financial econometrics to new quantitative researchers and developers, and has also advised LEK Consulting on applying machine learning techniques to capital budgeting.

He completed a Ph.D. in Finance and an MBA at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business in 2017, where he received the Fischer Black Ph.D. Fellowship, Eugene Fama Ph.D. Fellowship, and was an inaugural recipient of the Fama-Miller Liew Research Fellowship. Prior to that, he completed a bachelor’s of science in Honors Economics, Honors Statistics, and Financial Mathematics with Highest Distinction from the University of Michigan – Ann Arbor.

Alan is the Head of Alternative Data at Chicago Global and an assistant professor of finance at Hong Kong University where he teaches Quantitative Trading and Big Data Analysis in Finance at the Masters level. His research is in empirical corporate finance and investments, with a specialization in using alternative data. He received his Ph.D. from the Johnson School of Management in 2017 at Cornell University and his BA from Dartmouth College in 2009. Between school, he worked at DC Energy as a quantitative trader, Microsoft as a software developer, and Bridgewater Associates as a technology specialist on the research team.

Andy is partner at Chicago Global and serves as Head of Corporate Development. As Head of Corporate Development, Andy oversees the development of key corporate relationships, product development and operations. Prior to Chicago Global, Andy was with a global family office group and where he helped to build a pioneering Southeast Asian Islamic investment management business focused on private equity, real estate and equipment leasing.

Andy also held roles in Corporate Finance advisory at HwangDBS Investment Bank, where he originated and executed complex transactions in M&A, structured products, IPOs and corporate restructurings. He began his career in the assurance practice of KPMG in Kuala Lumpur. Andy earned an MBA from the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business and a Bachelor’s degree in Commerce, majoring in Accounting and Finance from Monash University.

Vedant is a Data Analyst at Chicago Global. He completed a MS in Investment Finance with Highest Distinction from National University of Singapore in 2020 and an undergraduate degree in Finance Summa Cum Laude from NMIMS (Mumbai) in 2018. Whilst at school, he worked at Chicago Global as a Quantitative Analyst, HDFC Mutual Fund (US$ 50 billion AUM) as an Investment Analyst and Ernst & Young as a Mergers & Acquisitions Analyst.

Nanut is a Quantitative Researcher at Chicago Global. He graduated from the University of Chicago in 2020 with a double major in Economics and Mathematics, where he was named a Chicago Booth Scholar. Prior to joining Chicago Global, he worked primarily in the field of data science and machine learning.