Our mission is to transform the investment process by instilling discipline in every decision.
ALPHA IS HIDDEN IN YOUR PORTFOLIO
FIND IT
Mental math, emotion, and bias are costing you alpha. Alpha Theory's decade of working with hundreds of managers with $100B+ in AUM has proven that improved decision discipline dramatically increases return.
Benefits
-
Being alerted to a position that is too large, an analyst that needs to update their targets, or an idea that's worth adding to the portfolio will reduce the number of alpha-harming mistakes and increase returns.
-
There is uncaptured alpha available in your existing portfolio from better position sizing. What would 3%+ of additional return per year mean to your business?
-
Alpha Theory provides a central repository for all fundamental research, allowing the entire team to collaborate in one place. Analysts can easily share their research which allows Portfolio Managers to know exactly what's happening.
-
Improve your position-sizing process by taking your implicit portfolio rules and making them explicit using a customizable rules engine.
-
Alpha Theory account managers are investment-process experts that act as outsourced team members to succesfully implement the software into your workflow. Tap into the extensive best practices from our network of process-oriented investors.
-
Alpha Theory's Historical Analytics highlights opportunities for improvement and areas of strength. This continuous feedback loop on key performance indicators helps optimize portfolios and increase alpha generation.
Company
-
We've assembled a dynamic, cross-functional leadership team with decades of capital markets industry experience, a deep working knowledge of the investment process and of leading-edge technologies.
- Leadership Team
- Selected Board Members
- Cameron Hight CFA Chief Executive Officer & Founder
- Dave Huffman Chief Technology Officer & Co-Founder
- Mike Guzek Chief Information Officer & Co-Founder
- Graham Stevens Chief Financial Officer
- Dan Zalika Managing Director of Data and Integration
- Benjamin Dunn Director of Product Innovation & President of Alpha Theory Advisors
Prior to founding and developing Alpha Theory in 2005, Cameron worked as an equity research analyst for 10 years, covering primarily technology companies and supporting over $20B in transactions for firms such as Lehman Brothers, CIBC (NYSE: CM), and Credit Suisse First Boston (NYSE: CS) before joining Afton Capital Management, a $200M long-short equity hedge fund, in 2002. He currently sits on the board of the UNC-Chapel Hill Business School Investment Fund. Cameron earned his Business degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and became one of the youngest ever to receive the Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) designation in 1999.
It was on the buy-side that Cameron became aware of the avoidable mistakes investment managers were making causing lost performance and he vowed to solve the problem. When he told his grandmother why he was starting Alpha Theory, she looked at him and asked, "You mean they're not doing this already?" and he knew at that moment he had a responsibility to help bring about a change in the industry. Today, Cameron spends his time deepening his knowledge on important topics in behavioral finance, decision sciences, and portfolio management. Further, he acts as a thought leader to investment managers striving to utilize investment-process "best practices" through direct communication at conferences and seminars, on TV and Radio, and through the written word.
Cameron is an avid golfer, Citi-biker, runner, a technology early-adopter, magician (he taught his daughters at the ages of three and one to love sushi), and a die-hard Tarheel fan.
For 20+ years, Dave has managed, designed, developed, and tested in all phases of enterprise-level software development. He has utilized a variety of leading-edge and open-source technologies to transform complex processes into powerful and intuitive software. Prior to co-founding Alpha Theory, Dave held development and leadership positions in multiple industries including Telecom, Manufacturing, and Government after graduating from UNC-Chapel Hill with a BS in Environmental Science and Engineering.
As the primary technical architect of the Alpha Theory platform, Dave spends his time collaborating with Alpha Theory's team and customers on ways to improve investors' decision-making. He employs Agile methodologies to ensure that the Alpha Theory platform is responsive to current and future needs. He provides leadership in managing the software, hardware, and network infrastructure to ensure that Alpha Theory will continue to provide the industry's most innovative Portfolio Management platform for investors into the future.
Dave enjoys spending time with his family, traveling, listening to live music, camping, mountain biking, trail running, and generally finding ways to get outside and away from technology once in a while.
Mike is a technology professional with 15 years' experience in all phases of the software development lifecycle, focusing on improving information accessibility and systems integration. Prior to helping launch Alpha Theory in 2007, Mike co-founded Wazo Consulting, where he designed and developed a large web-based literacy tracking application that has been used in hundreds of schools nationwide and is still in use today. Prior to that, Michael was a Project Manager for the Association of American Medical Colleges and was a consultant with Computer Sciences Corporation Consulting and Systems Integration Division, where he worked on large projects for telecommunication firms and large government agencies. Mike is a graduate of UNC-Chapel Hill with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science and Communication Studies.
At Alpha Theory, Mike's primary focus is ensuring the security, reliability and availability of client data and managing an ever-growing supply of third party data. When he's not worrying about client data, he steps into the client services team to help with client integration, support and building internal admin tools to help Alpha Theory analyze data to find new ways to drive value.
Mike is actively engaged in his local community as a member of the Parks and Recreation Advisory Board focused on leading teams to build and maintain walking and hiking trails. He is also an accomplished athlete having played basketball at UNC and is a 19-time Ironman triathlon finisher, a USA Triathlon All American, ultra runner and marathon swimmer.
Graham Stevens joined the Alpha Theory team after serving as the Vice President of Finance and Commodity Risk Management at ReCommunity, a recycling company he co-founded in early 2011. Graham helped to build the business into the country's largest pure play recycling company (1,500+ employees and more than $175 Million of Revenue). He served in a wide variety of executive roles at ReCommunity and has experience with business development, branding, operations, building out benefit infrastructure (401k, Insurances, etc.), developing IP, architecting long term strategy and managing a large derivative portfolio to stabilize commodity revenue.
Graham brings a wealth of experience in raising equity and sourcing debt to support rapid organic growth and acquisitions through his work at ReCommunity and in his previous roles in Finance at Casella Waste Systems (CWST). He helped to raise more than $220 Million from Private Equity companies to start and grow ReCommunity and has worked with a wide variety of banks to secure more than $500 Million of credit facilities including Term Loans, Revolving Credit, Bridge Loans, High Yield Notes and Unitranche Debt.
Graham is an innovator and holds two patents and several more which have been published but not issued. He loves to golf, hike, and travel wherever mountains dominate the terrain. He loves to decompress by spending time with his family and reading biographies of the world's most interesting people. He has a BA from the College of Wooster and an MBA from Emory University.
Dan Zalika has 20 years of financial industry experience and 15 years in software development, including roles at Investor Analytics (currently StatPro), BNYMellon and Merrill Lynch. He has led client onboarding and service delivery teams for risk transparency and portfolio aggregation while owning the implementation and management of security master and market data systems including Bloomberg, Thomson Reuters, Markit, Sungard and SIX Telekurs.
As Managing Director of Data and Integration, Dan focuses on strategy and API design choices to build robust and scalable data processing systems. He designed and implemented Excel Connect, the Excel-based Integration for Alpha Theory, and continues to expand functionality for the Excel add-in while also growing the capabilities of the Alpha Theory API ecosystem.
Dan graduated with a BA from Rutgers University in New Jersey. Away from work, Dan enjoys family time and excursions of any kind, from day trips and nature walks to go-karting and theme parks. He is also a singer/songwriter, plays guitar and bass, and is an active performer in the northern NJ music scene.
Benn has focused on understanding and helping others understand portfolio risk, portfolio management, and investment decision process "best practices" for the last 20 years. Most recently, Benn founded Axtell Consulting, a risk and portfolio management consultancy for alternative investment advisors and managers before merging Axtell with Alpha Theory. Prior to that, Benn served as the Head of Risk Management for the CR Intrinsic Investors unit within S.A.C. Capital Advisors. From 1999-2006 he was the Chief Risk Officer for Weiss Multi-Strategy, overseeing 14 different strategies and multiple asset classes. Benn received his undergraduate degree in Interdisciplinary Studies from Trinity College and was a University Fellow in the Department of Cognitive Science & Linguistics at Brown University.
For Alpha Theory's portfolio consulting practice, Alpha Theory Advisors, Benn acts as the outsourced Chief Risk Officer for a select group of multi-billion dollar, multi-asset class alternative investment firms, providing risk analysis, portfolio construction, performance attribution, product selection, and decision process advice. Daily interactions with the investment teams at these firms keep Benn on top of the latest thinking and emerging issues facing investment managers and he uses insights from those interactions to inform product innovation for Alpha Theory's market-leading decision process and optimization software.
Benn suffers from an unusual form of obsessive-compulsive disorder that compels him to run extremely long distances every single day - often to the point of injury - training for a mountainous, 100 mile run in the Rocky Mountain West every year with visions of a masters podium in his head (which leads to the occasional top 10 finish). When he's not working or running, he's researching military schools for his kids.
Mr. Blount is currently the founder and CEO of DISCERN Analytics and currently serves on boards and committees for the National Academy of Science Committee on Forecasting Future Disruptive Technology in addition to others. From 1986 to 2007, Mr. Blount was an Institutional Investor All-American and Wall Street Journal All-Star Analyst covering internet, wireless, PCs, servers, storage, hard drives, telecommunications, IT distribution and environmental services companies for such leading Wall Street firms as Lehman Brothers, Credit Suisse First Boston, Donaldson Lufkin & Jenrette, and CIBC Oppenheimer.
Mr. Frankel is currently the Managing Partner of the Slingstone Group, a management consultancy. Most recently he was President of EDGAR Online, originally joining the firm as its Chief Marketing Officer where he developed and implemented sales, marketing and product management strategies in order to refocus and reposition the then publicly listed and Bain Capital backed company for growth and eventual sale to R.R. Donnelley & Sons Company (NASDAQ: RRD) in 2012. Prior to that he was a member of executive team behind FirstRain, a VC backed search technology firm, Vice President of Sales at BNY Jaywalk, a division of the Bank of New York and, earlier in his career, held several roles of steadily increasing seniority, culminating as the Vice President of Content & Partnerships at FactSet Research Systems Inc. (NYSE: FDS). Mr. Frankel is a graduate of the Carroll School of Management at Boston College.
Mr. Carmichael runs Carmichael Inc., a private equity firm which has invested in many early stage companies, including a seed investment in Motricity, which was backed by a large investment from Carl Icahn. Mr. Carmichael takes an active role in all of his firm's investments and draws upon considerable knowledge garnered through existing investments, extensive contacts, and founding and selling two businesses prior to starting his private equity firm. Mr. Carmichael started his career at First American Bank and is a graduate of Vanderbilt University.
Trey is the Managing Partner of Bonhill Capital. He also serves as a Partner and member of the Investment Committee of Ridgemont Equity Partners, a diversified, sector-focused private equity firm. Trey was a founder and partner of Ridgemont's predecessor firm, Banc of America Capital Investors (BACI), from 1993 to 2010. While at BACI, he invested across many sectors and was primarily responsible for the group's investment activities in media and financial services. In addition to Alpha Theory, Trey has served on numerous public and private company boards and currently serves on the Board of Directors of Ridgemont portfolio company Simpleview, as well as Bonhill investments, WasteZero, and BAM Worldwide.
Trey earned an M.B.A from Columbia University and a B.A. from Vanderbilt University.As a former Managing Director at The Carlyle Group, Bud focused on equity investments in larger companies in the software, software-enabled services, semiconductors, systems, and related distribution businesses. He established and led the firm's Technology Buyout Group for a decade. Bud also led Carlyle's investments in CommScope (NASDAQ: COMM) and currently sits on the company's Board of Directors. During his career, Bud led Carlyle's investments in technology companies SS&C Technologies (NASDAQ: SSNC), Open Link Financial, Open Solutions, Jazz Semiconductor, and Freescale Semiconductor (NYSE: FSL), as well as aerospace companies Firth Rixon, Sippican, and CPU Technology.
Bud earned a B.S. in electrical engineering cum laude from The Citadel and an MBA from the Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration.Currently, Co-CEO at Black Mountain Systems, LLC., a software company that develops innovative, tailored solutions for global financial service companies in the areas of data aggregation, process management, and business reporting. Prior to joining Black Mountain Systems, he was responsible for leveraged loan and high-yield bond underwriting and origination as well as the distribution and trading of leveraged loans as a Director at Wachovia Securities. Prior to Wachovia, Andy worked in various mortgage, credit, and structured products underwriting, workout, and capital markets roles at Goldman Sachs and AMRESCO.
Andy earned an MBA from Duke University's Fuqua School of Business and a Bachelor's degree in Finance from Emory University's Goizueta School of Business. -
- Careers
We're looking for A-Players
Alpha Theory is an award-winning leader in improving investment decision discipline and performance for some of the world's most respected investment managers. Our goal is to help all of them.
We've worked hard to create an entrepreneurial work environment that challenges and enriches, emphasizing:
- Character, integrity and ethical conduct
- A strong sense of purpose and an authentic desire to help
- Deep relationships based on trust and respect
- High performance and full accountability
- Continuous learning and improvement
- Sensible and practical solutions
- Unique perspectives, diverse backgrounds and experiences
If you are a bright and motivated person that gets things done, we'd like to talk to you.
Send us your resume and cover letter to [email protected]
- Sr. Database Administrator
- Integration Developer
Alpha Theory is looking for a Sr. DBA with experience using PostgreSQL.
Alpha Theory, an award-winning leader in improving investment decision discipline and performance for some of the world's most respected investment managers, is looking for a Senior DBA with experience in PostgreSQL. Alpha Theory provides SaaS which allows investment managers to optimize their position sizes and the composition of their portfolios. We're a small company and have worked hard to create an entrepreneurial work environment that challenges and enriches. If you're a skilled DBA with a focus on PostgreSQL and Microsoft SQL Server who is proactive, takes initiative, works well without supervision, and identifies problems and solutions and takes action before issues arise, we want to hear from you!
As a Senior DBA reporting to the CTO, your core responsibilities will include:
- Keeping our existing production and development databases running optimally (and get them running optimally where they're not currently).
- Ensuring our database environment scales in line with the rapid growth in our client base.
- Monitoring production performance and taking quick action to remedy any problems, including after business hours.
- Taking part in DR planning and testing.
- Assisting developers in optimizing queries.
- Deploying schema, index, and procedure changes across our different environments.
- A phased migration from SQL Server 2012 Enterprise edition to PostgreSQL.
- Design and implementation of historical data marts, including investigation of tools, system design.
- Introduction of private database instances for each client.
Additionally, we have a number of significant projects starting:
- Experience in monitoring/alerting, troubleshooting and resolving database problems.
- Experience in Performance Tuning and Optimization (PTO), using native monitoring and troubleshooting tools.
- Experience with backups, restores and recovery models, particularly across geographically disparate data centers.
- Knowledge of High Availability (HA), Replication and Disaster Recovery (DR) options for PostgreSQL.
- Knowledge of indexes, index management, and statistics.
- Strong ANSI SQL, T-SQL and PL/pgSQL skills.
- Good communication and documentation skills.
- Knowledge of High Availability (HA), Replication and Disaster Recovery (DR) options for SQL Server.
- Experience with big data platforms, tools, and technologies.
- Experience designing analytic queries for large volumes of financial time series data.
- Experience with administration and deployment of schema changes to large numbers of database instances.
Required:
Desired:
This position requires all candidates to pass a stringent background check and relocation assistance is available.
Send us your resume and cover letter to [email protected]
Alpha Theory is looking for a Senior Reference Data and Integration Developer.
Alpha Theory, an award-winning leader in improving investment decision discipline and performance for some of the world's most respected investment managers, is looking for a Reference Data and Integration Developer to take our Security Master, historical pricing data and integration tools to the next level. Alpha Theory provides SaaS which allows investment managers to optimize their position sizes and the composition of their portfolios. We're a small company and have worked hard to create an entrepreneurial work environment that challenges and enriches.
You'll start off by developing on a set of tools to allow our client onboarding team to work more rapidly and effectively, letting our integration analysts map position files with minimal developer assistance. Additionally, you'll be updating and refining our reference master, including security information and historical time series. You'll work closely with our onboarding team to refine requirements for the system, understand their workflow, and build the system and monitoring/validity checking tools. Additionally, you'll maintain the system and provide support for any problems that occur in daily use.
- Experience with loading financial data from a variety of sources. You've loaded data from Bloomberg, Reuters, IDC, and/or Sungard, as well as producing and/or consuming position data, and you understand identifiers for equities, options, swaps and contracts for differences..
- 3+ years supporting middle and back office operations.
- Strong SQL skills, working with large data sets. Microsoft SQL Server or PostgeSQL preferred.
- Strong Core Java skills.
Required:
- Experience with JVM based scripting languages, ex. MVEL, Groovy.
- Experience building DSLs.
- Familiarity with Spring frameworks.
- Web front end development experience (HTML, CSS, Javascript).
Desired:
This position requires all candidates to pass a stringent background check and relocation assistance is available.
Send us your resume and cover letter to [email protected]
-