Quantitative Equity Team


Rick Nelson Chief Investment Officer

Omar Aguilar, Ph.D. Head of Quantitative Equity

Portfolio Management				Quantitative Analysts
Head of Portfolio Management Vincent Costa, CFA Portfolio Managers May Tong, CFA Steve Sedmak Nigel Francis Portfolio Specialists Charu Ahluwalia Alice Jacobs				Elias Belessakos, Ph.D. Sanne de Boer, Ph.D. Swati Chandra, CFA Emre Erdogan, Ph.D. Fernando Garza, CFA Wilmer Henao Vladik Shutoy Oleg Slinin Michael Suen, Ph.D., CFA Pavel Vaynshtok, CFA



Fredric A. Nelson III Vice Chairman, Chief Investment Officer Third Party Business
Rick Nelson is Vice Chairman, Chief Investment Officer Third Party Business for ING Investment Management Americas, which operates in the institutional, managed account and alternative markets. In his role, Rick is responsible for leading all investment activities across the equity and fixed income platforms. This encompasses portfolio oversight, investment team review, and managing ING Investment Management's strategic Investment Process and Risk Management functions. Rick has over 24 years of investment management experience. Prior to joining ING in 2003, he was with JPMorgan Fleming Investment Management, Inc., where he was head of the U.S. Equity Group as well as a member of the Global and U.S. Executive Committees. Before that he was at Bankers Trust, where he was part of the Global Investment Management Group and led the Global Quantitative Applications Group. Rick received his B.S. in economics from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and an M.B.A. from the University of Chicago
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Omar Aguilar, Ph.D. Head of Quantitative Equity
Omar Aguilar joined ING Investment Management in July 2004. Omar has over 15 years of quantitative investment experience. In his role as Head of Quantitative Equity, he is responsible for the continued success of the firm's quantitative group, consisting of the research team that builds and enhances the models and portfolio construction techniques underlying the firm’s quantitative strategies, as well as the portfolio management team which implements the models in client and fund portfolios. The quantitative equity group has built a reputation for a research driven investment style that has delivered significant value to clients over the years. ING currently manages over $20 billion in quantitative equity assets for individual and institutional accounts. Omar joined ING Investment Management from Lehman Brothers, where he served as head of quantitative research for their alternative investment management business. Prior to that, he was a director of quantitative research and portfolio manager with Merrill Lynch Investment Management. Omar was a Fulbright Scholar at Duke University’s Institute of Statistics and Decisions Sciences, where he earned his M.S. and Ph.D. He completed a B.S. in actuarial sciences and a graduate degree in applied statistics from the Mexican Autonomous Institute of Technology (ITAM). Omar has been published in the "Journal of Business Statistics", "Proceedings from the American Statistical Association" and "Applied Bayesian Statistics".
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Vincent Costa, CFA Head of Portfolio Management for Quantitative Equity
Vincent Costa joined ING Investment Management April 2006 as Head of Portfolio Management for quantitative equity. Prior to joining ING he was with Merrill Lynch Investment Management, where he worked for the last 7 years in quantitative equity leadership positions. Most recently, he served as managing director and head of their quantitative investments organization. In that role, he oversaw $60 billion in assets across 70 funds, including index and enhanced index strategies, as well as hedge and structured products sold to institutional and retail clients in the U.S., Europe and Asia. Vincent has over 21 years of experience in the investment industry. He earned his Bachelor's degree in quantitative business analysis from Pennsylvania State University and his M.B.A. from New York University, and he holds the Chartered Financial Analyst designation.
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Steve Sedmak Portfolio Manager
Steve Sedmak joined ING Investment Management in November 2006 as Portfolio Manager on the quantitative investment team reporting to the Head of Portfolio Management for Quantitative Equity. Steve has over seven years of investment experience. Before joining ING, Steve was a trader at Stifel Nicolaus/Legg Mason. He also designed and implemented trading algorithms and smart order routing processes and executed agency baskets for small-cap and mid-cap stocks. Prior to that he was a trader at CIBC World Markets where he developed new portfolio and trading analytic systems and was responsible for client and regulatory reporting, trade allocation and booking. He also worked as a summer intern on the equity derivatives strategy team at Merrill Lynch. Steve earned a B.A. degree in mathematics and a B.S. in business administration from the University of Southern California and an M.S. in Mathematics of Finance from New York University.
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May Tong, CFA Portfolio Manager
May Tong joined ING Investment Management June 2006. May is a Portfolio Manager on the quantitative equity team. She has over six years of investment experience. Prior to joining ING, she was an associate portfolio manager for five years on the quantitative team at Merrill Lynch Investment Managers with oversight of $60 billion of assets including daily cash management and determination of trading needs and strategies for all index and enhanced strategies. Before that she was an audit intern at Grant Thornton where she assisted with all phases of audit processes for several clients. She received a B.S. in finance and accounting magna cum laude from Boston College, Carrol School of Management and was a member of the Golden Key National Honor Society. She holds the Chartered Financial Analyst designation.
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Nigel Francis Assistant Portfolio Manager
Nigel Francis is an assistant portfolio manager on the quantitative equity team. He joined ING Investment Management in 2005 as a project manager, working in the Chief of Staff office, to the Chief Investment Officer. He has over 10 years of investment experience. Prior to joining ING, he worked in the Technology Department at JP Morgan Asset Management in London and New York, where he worked as a business analyst. Nigel received a B.S. with honors in Computer Science from Staffordshire University in England.
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Elias Belessakos, Ph.D. Senior Quantitative Analyst
Elias Belessakos has 11 years of investment experience. Prior to joining ING Investment Management, he was a senior portfolio manager for New York Life Investment Management (NYLIM), where he designed forecasting and portfolio construction models. Prior to NYLIM, Elias was at Deutsche Bank and J.P. Morgan Investment Management. Elias earned a B.A. in economics and finance from The American College of Greece in Athens and an M.A. and Ph.D. in economics and from the University of Pennsylvania.
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Pavel Vaynshtok, CFA Senior Quantitative Analyst
Pavel Vaynshtok joined ING Investment Management in 2004 and has 12 years of financial services experience. Prior to joining ING, he was a portfolio manager and quantitative research analyst at JPMorgan Fleming Investment Management, where he managed structured equity portfolios and developed models for stock selection. Prior to JP Morgan Fleming, Pavel was a senior consultant in the financial services practice of Andersen Consulting. He received a B.S. in operations research from Columbia University School of Engineering and Applied Science and an M.B.A. in finance from the University of Michigan Business School. Pavel holds the Chartered Financial Analyst designation.
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Sanne de Boer , Ph.D. Quantitative Analyst
Sanne de Boer joined ING Investment Management in April 2006 as a Quantitative Research Analyst. He has three years of experience in the financial services industry. Sanne joined ING from Citigroup where he developed statistical models to analyze interest rate, foreign exchange and market risk for the Global Transaction Services division. Prior to that he was with American Express in the U.S. Risk Performance and Consumer Card Services Group. Sanne earned a M.S. in mathematics and an M.A. in economics cum laude from Vrije University in Amsterdam and received a Ph.D. in operations research from Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Sanne has been published in "Operations Research," "Journal of Revenue and Pricing Management," and "European Journal of Operational Research."
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Swati Chandra, CFA Quantitative Analyst
Swati Chandra joined ING Investment Management in May 2006 and has three years of financial services experience. Prior to joining ING Investment Management, she was an analyst at UBS Investment Bank, where she was responsible for risk analysis methodologies for portfolios of convertible bonds, derivatives, risk arbitrage and long-short equity. Before that Swati was a fundamental research analyst covering consumer finance and technology stocks for Pictet Asset Management. She began her career as a software engineer and programmer analyst at Infosys Technologies. She has a Bachelor of Engineering degree in electronics and communications from Gujarat University in India and a M.B.A. from the University of Chicago. Swati holds the Chartered Financial Analyst designation.
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Emre Erdogan, Ph.D. Quantitative Analyst
Emre Erdogan joined ING Investment Management in August 2006 as Quantitative Analyst. Previously he was a research analyst and teaching assistant at Columbia University for six years where he conducted research on portfolio management, value at risk and optimization. In 2004, he also developed statistical models at the IBM T.J. Watson Research Center. He has been published in "Proceedings of SIAM Data Mining 2005" and will be published in "Mathematical Programming," "SIAM Journal on Optimization," and "Mathematical Methods of Operations Research". Emre earned his Ph.D. and M.S. in operations research from Columbia University and a B.S. in industrial engineering from Middle East Technical University in Ankara, Turkey.
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Fernando Garza, CFA Senior Quantitative Analyst
Fernando Garza joined ING Investment Management in December 2004. He has 12 years of research and investment experience. Fernando joined ING Investment Management from First Quadrant where he was responsible for European equity research. Prior to that, he held a variety of positions at BARRA Inc., where he developed equity risk models for Japan and Mexico. He began his investment career as an oil analyst at P.M.I. International Commerce, the trading arm of Mexico’s state oil company. He graduated with honors from the University of Texas at Austin with a B.S. in mathematics and received his M.A. in mathematics from the University of California at Berkeley. Fernando holds the Chartered Financial Analyst designation.
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Wilmer E. Henao Quantitative Analyst
Wilmer Henao joined ING Investment Management in July 2005 as a Quantitative Research Analyst. He graduated in May 2005 from Columbia University with a M.A. in mathematics of finance. He received a B.S. in mathematics and B.S. in economics from Universidad de Los Andes in Bogota, Columbia.
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Vladik Shutoy Quantitative Analyst
Vladik Shutoy joined ING Investment Management in March 2006 as a quantitative research analyst. He has six years of quantitative experience in the financial services industry. Vladik joined ING from Credit Suisse First Boston where he worked in the Equity Derivatives Group. Prior to that he was with Ziff Brothers Investments in the Risk Performance and Reporting Group. He began his career at Goldman, Sachs in Enterprise Technology. Vladik earned a B.S. in computer engineering, an M.S. in computer science and is currently pursuing an M.S. in financial engineering, all from Polytechnic University.
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Oleg Slinin Quantitative Analyst
Oleg Slinin joined ING Investment Management in June 2005, following his graduation in May from Columbia University where he earned his B.A. in economics. He worked as an intern in the firm’s Fund of Funds group for the last nine months and had been a research assistant at Columbia University and New York University in their psychology departments.
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Michael Suen, Ph.D., CFA Quantitative Analyst
Michael Suen joined ING Investment Management in August, 2007 as a Quantitative Analyst. Prior to joining ING Investment Management, he was a Quantitative Analyst at Invesco, where he was responsible for developing and testing investment strategies in US equity markets. Michael earned a B.Sc. in computer science from University of Manchester (UK), he received a M.B.A. from City University of Hong Kong and a M.S. in Finance and Ph.D. from Baruch College, City University of New York. Michael holds the Chartered Financial Analyst designation.
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Charu Ahluwalia Portfolio Specialist
Charu Ahluwalia joined ING Investment Management in September 2006 as a Portfolio Specialist supporting the Quantitative Equity team. She has 3 years of investment experience. Most recently, Charu was a product marketing analyst at Instinet, where she developed and marketed a new research product for six sectors for the U.S. and Canadian markets. She has also conducted extensive research on products, services, competitors, and customer needs in institutional equity trading. Prior to that she was a credit analyst at G.E. Capital in Delhi, India. Charu received her M.B.A. and a B.B.A. from H.P. University, India and holds series 7 & 63 licenses.
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Alice Jacobs Portfolio Specialist
Alice Jacobs joined ING Investment Management in August 2004. She has 12 years of investment management experience. Before joining ING Investment Management, she worked as an integral member of Lehman Brothers Alternative Investment Management, alongside Dr. Omar Aguilar, and prior to that within Morgan Stanley’s equity research department. Her first experience in the hedge fund industry dates back to 1994 while at UBS Warburg. Alice received Masters degrees from Indiana University and from New York University.
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