Ben Appen
Senior Investment Officer and Founding Partner
Magnitude Capital, LLC

Benjamin S. Appen, CFA is a Founding Partner and Senior Investment Officer at Magnitude Capital, responsible for developing and managing the Magnitude family of funds of funds. Mr. Appen was previously a Senior Vice President at D.E. Shaw & Co., L.P., a New York-based investment firm focusing on quantitative trading and technology venture capital activities. During his seven-year tenure, he co-founded and managed the firm’s fund of funds business, which grew to approximately $600 million in hedge fund investments. In this role, he oversaw the evaluation of all investment strategies, manager selection, and quantitative research, including the development of new tools for monitoring portfolio risk. D.E. Shaw & Co.’s fund of funds business was known for its quantitative sophistication and rigorous due diligence process. Mr. Appen also managed D.E. Shaw & Co.’s venture capital investments, and served on the board of directors of Schrödinger, Inc. a computational chemistry software pioneer.

Immediately before joining Magnitude Capital, Mr. Appen was the Chief Executive Officer of Alkindi, Inc., based in New York City. He was responsible for overseeing the development of a collaborative filtering application based on n-dimensional clustering algorithms. Alkindi’s improvements to this technology led to the company’s software being rated highest in user tests. In 1992, Mr. Appen graduated magna cum laude with a B.A. in Political Science from Columbia University; he was awarded the CFA designation in 1999.

On several occasions, Mr. Appen has been invited to speak as a guest lecturer at Columbia Business School. He is the chairman of the board of directors of Credit Where Credit Is Due, Inc., a non-profit organization focused on financial literacy and economic empowerment in communities that are underserved by traditional institutions. He is also a member of the board of directors of the Harlem Success Academy Charter School 3.

Trey Beck
Managing Director and Member of Executive Committee
D.E. Shaw Investment Management

Trey Beck is a managing director of D. E. Shaw & Co., L.P. and head of the D. E. Shaw group’s product development and investor relations group, where he participates in the development of the firm’s overall business strategy.  Since joining the D. E. Shaw group in 1993, Mr. Beck has worked on a variety of initiatives, including the structuring of a number of the firm’s alternative investment vehicles, the management of investor affairs, and the monitoring of government, regulatory, and trade group issues affecting the finance industry.  Mr. Beck oversees the development of the firm’s institutional asset management business and is a member of the executive committee of D. E. Shaw Investment Management, L.L.C.  He serves on the board of directors and the executive committee of the Managed Funds Association.  Mr. Beck graduated from the University of Virginia in 1993 with a dual degree in history and Russian studies.  He was elected to Phi Beta Kappa as an undergraduate junior and was designated an Echols Scholar for academic distinction.

Robert Discolo
Managing Director, Head of Hedge Funds Strategies Group
AIG Investments

Mr. Discolo joined AIG Investments in 1999 and is a Managing Director, Alternative Investments and is the Head of the Hedge Fund Strategies Group. Mr. Discolo, who is also a member of AIG's Hedge Fund Investment and Strategy Allocation Committees, has over 20 years experience with major financial institutions in various capacities relating to investment products, primarily hedge and private equity funds. Previously, he held positions at PaineWebber Inc., Bank Julius Baer, and Merrill Lynch & Co, where his responsibilities included creating portfolios of hedge funds for private and institutional clients, development of hedge fund and private equity products, oversight of business structure and development for hedge funds and hedge fund of funds, and managing the evaluation and selection process of hedge funds for both discretionary and advisory clients. Mr. Discolo also was President of the European Warrant Fund (a NYSE listed closed-end fund) and Julius Baer International Equity Fund. Mr. Discolo received a BS in accounting from St. John's University and an MBA from the Lubin School of Business at Pace University. He holds Series 7 and Series 24 licenses and he is a CFA and CAIA charterholder.  Mr. Discolo is also a CPA and a member of the AICPA, CFA Institute, CAIA Association, GARP, and NY State Society of Security Analysts.

Jaeson Dubrovay
Senior Consultant – Hedge Funds
NEPC

Mr. Dubrovay has over eighteen years of hedge fund investment experience. Mr. Dubrovay heads up the hedge fund practice in the Alternative Investments Group at NEPC.

Prior to joining NEPC, Mr. Dubrovay was a Managing Director/Founder at Hanseatic Capital Advisors. In this role, he advised clients on hedge fund strategies, the investment process, manager due diligence, portfolio construction and building innovative portfolios targeted to unique market segments.

Previously Mr. Dubrovay was Chief Investment Officer of Carr Global Advisors, a subsidiary of Credit Agricole Indosuez, where he formed and managed several funds of hedge funds for both institutional and Private Banking clients. As CIO, he was responsible for all aspects of the investment process including developing investment policies, sourcing managers and performing due diligence, constructing portfolios and overseeing the ongoing monitoring and risk management process.

Mr. Dubrovay began his investment career with full responsibility for managing a diversified liquid portfolio for HAL Trust, a public European holding company that was invested across traditional and alternative investments. He previously held financial positions as Corporate Controller for HAL Trust, senior internal auditor for Squibb Corporation, and senior auditor for Arthur Andersen & Co.

Mr. Dubrovay, who is a Certified Public Accountant, earned an M.B.A. in finance with honors from Santa Clara University, and a B.A. in Accounting from the University of Washington.

Prior to joining Maverick in 2004, Mr. Galbraith served as Chief Investment Officer and Chief U.S. Investment Strategist at Morgan Stanley. While at Morgan Stanley, Mr. Galbraith’s work was consistently recognized in various Wall Street analyst polls, including a No. 1 ranking in the Institutional Investor All America Research Team poll in 2002 and 2003. Prior to joining Morgan Stanley, he was a Partner at Sanford Bernstein, where he was a highly ranked analyst in both the packaged foods sector and the securities industry. Mr. Galbraith is an Adjunct Professor at Columbia University Business School, where he teaches securities analysis. He also serves on the Board of Trustees for the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia and as a board member for Pezna Investment Management as well as the Harlem Success Academy, a charter school founded in 2006 in New York City. Mr. Galbraith received his B.A. (Summa Cum Laude) from Tufts University, where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa.

Phillip Goldstein
Principal and Co-Founder
Bulldog Investors

In 1992, after working twenty-five years as a civil engineer for the City of New York, Phillip Goldstein and his partner, Steve Samuels founded what is now Bulldog Investors, a value oriented group of hedge funds that invest in closed-end funds and small cap operating companies. Bulldog Investors, which started with $700,000 and currently has assets of approximately $500 million, often employs activism to unlock the intrinsic value of its investments. Since 1996, Bulldog Investors, which has never had a losing year, has conducted more than 25 proxy contests and in September 2007 launched its first of several “hostile” tender offers.

Mr. Goldstein has served as a director of a number of closed-end funds and is currently a director of the Mexico Equity & Income Fund and Brantley Capital Corporation. He graduated from the University of Southern California in 1966 with a Bachelor of Engineering degree and from C.C.N.Y in 1968 with a Master of Engineering degree.

Mr. Goldstein is a widely-quoted expert on closed-end funds, hedge funds, value investing, investor activism, corporate governance and securities regulation.  In 2006, Mr. Goldstein and Bulldog Investors succeeded in a legal challenge to invalidate the SEC’s controversial rule to register hedge funds.  They have also challenged securities regulations that prohibit truthful non-misleading communication by companies and other market participants. In pursuit of the latter objective, Bulldog Investors is currently seeking to have court invalidate as unconstitutional a regulation that prohibits unrestricted access to its website.

Douglas Teitelbaum
Managing Partner
Bay Harbour Management

Doug is the co-owner and managing partner of Bay Harbour Management, LC, an SEC registered Investment Advisor that specializes in investments in securities of distressed companies, and in buying and fixing distressed companies. Doug first traded a bank loan of a bankrupt company in 1988. Bay Harbour focuses on both the investments in securities of distressed companies and also taking control of distressed companies. Bay Harbour recently sold Telcove, a telcom competitor (formerly Adelphia Business Solutions).  Bay Harbour together with partners Robert Earl and Starwood Hotels, purchased the former Aladdin, a 2600 room, 115m square foot casino on the Las Vegas strip which recently reopened as the Planet Hollywood Resort and Casino after a $250 million redevelopment.  He holds an un-restricted gaming license in the State of Nevada.

Doug’s outside interests include political, medical and cultural interests, with significant support historically for the Ovarian Cancer Research Fund and the Harris Obesity Prevention Effort. Doug served as the Treasurer of the American Jewish Congress, where he remains a board member. Doug won Tony and Drama Desk awards as a producer of 2002 Best Musical Thoroughly Modern Millie and was the 2000 recipient of the AJC’s Isaiah Award for community leadership.

Daniel Zwirn
Managing Partner
D.B. Zwirn & Co.

Daniel Zwirn, Managing Partner/Founder of D.B. Zwirn & Co., founded the business of DBZ & Co. in October 2001.  He served as Managing Director and Senior Portfolio Manager of the Special Opportunities Group of Highbridge Capital Management through December 2003.

Prior to that, Mr. Zwirn served as Founder/Portfolio Manager of the Special Opportunities Group of MSD Capital, L.P., the private investment firm of Michael Dell.  From 1997 through early 2000, Mr. Zwirn was employed at Davidson Kempner Partners, where he initiated the firm’s focus on direct debt investments as well as international merger arbitrage, for which he was given a mandate to open the firm’s London office.  Prior to attending business school, Mr. Zwirn served as an analyst in media and communications mergers and private equity investments at Lazard Frères & Co. and Madison Dearborn Partners, respectively.

Mr. Zwirn received an M.B.A. from the Harvard Business School in 1998, a B.S. in Economics with a triple concentration in Accounting, Finance and Corporate Control (self-designed), cum laude, from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business in 1993, and a B.A.S. in Computer Science, cum laude, from the University of Pennsylvania’s Moore School of Electrical Engineering in 1993. 

Mr. Zwirn is a member of The Council on Foreign Relations (Term) and The Young Presidents Organization.  He also serves on the Advisory Council of The Hamilton Project at the Brookings Institution, the Leadership Council of the Robin Hood Foundation and the Board of Trustees of New York’s Public Theater.