Verne O. Sedlacek | President and Chief Executive Officer

Verne Sedlacek joined Commonfund in 2002 as Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer and was appointed President and CEO July 1, 2003. In addition, he serves as a member of the Commonfund Group Investment Policy Committee. Prior to Commonfund, Mr. Sedlacek was President and COO of John W. Henry & Company, Inc., President and Director of Westport Capital Management Corporation and Global Capital Management Limited since 1998. Previously he served as Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer for the Harvard Management Company, where he was responsible for managing the areas of personnel, budgets, systems, performance, analysis, contract, credit, compliance, custody, operations, cash management, securities lending, and market risk evaluation for the then approximately $14 billion University Fund. He also has served on many not-for-profit and for-profit boards. Mr. Sedlacek currently serves on the boards of the Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges, the NYSE Pension Managers Advisory Board and is a member of the Samsung Global Investment Advisory Council (SGIAC). He earned an A.B. in Economics from Princeton University and was certified as a CPA by the State of New York in 1978.

Fredric "Rick" Nelson | Chief Investment Officer

Rick Nelson joined Commonfund in 2011 and has oversight of Commonfund’s equity and fixed income programs as well as the outsourced solutions business.  Rick chairs the Commonfund Investment Policy and Asset Allocation Committee. Before joining Commonfund, Rick was Vice Chairman and Chief Investment Officer of ING Investment Management Americas, New York, NY from 2003-2009, where he led more than 300 professionals managing over $165 billion in assets.   He was responsible for client and ING proprietary capital in traditional, private equity and hedge fund asset classes.  Rick was a member of ING Investment Management Committee, Insurance Americas Asset Liability Committee, ING Group Management Council, and Director, ING Mutual Funds.  While at ING he created the Multi-Asset Strategy and Solutions Group which combined asset allocation, liability modeling, risk management and financial engineering skills to deliver consultative solutions and multi-asset portfolios for clients. Before that, Rick was Managing Director, Head of U.S. Equity for JP Morgan Investment Management, New York, NY from 2000-2003. He led 120 professionals managing over $90 billion in assets. Rick was responsible for institutional and retail client assets in quantitative and fundamental active strategies across all-cap ranges and styles. He was also a member of JPMIM Management Committee. Prior to his role at JP Morgan Investment Management, he was with Bankers Trust Company for 13 years, most recently as Managing Director and Head of the Quantitative Investments Group.  In this capacity he led a team of 13 professionals and initiated the group’s entry into cutting edge active quantitative strategies. Mr. Nelson earned an M.B.A. from the University of Chicago and a B.S. in Business from the University of Pennsylvania, Wharton School of Business.

E. Lyndon Tefft | Chief Operating Officer

Lyndon Tefft joined Commonfund in 2003 as Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. In this capacity, he is responsible for the management and oversight of Commonfund's Information Technology, Operations and Corporate Accounting teams. Before joining the firm, Mr. Tefft spent five years serving as Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer for the John W. Henry & Company, Inc. Prior to that, he spent over ten years with Harvard University and four years with Harvard Management Company. At Harvard Management Company, he led the development of an information technology infrastructure to support global investment and trading in equities, bonds, futures, swaps, currencies and closed end funds. He holds an M.B.A. from Wharton Graduate School of Business and a B.S. in Industrial Management from Purdue University.

John W. Auchincloss | Secretary and General Counsel

John Auchincloss also serves as a member of the Commonfund Group Investment Committee. He joined Commonfund and its subsidiaries in 1996. Mr. Auchincloss has been a practicing attorney since 1984, and has served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Office of the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, where his roles included serving as Deputy Appellate Attorney and as a member of that office’s Securities and Commodities Frauds Task Force, and has worked as a corporate associate at Davis Polk & Wardwell in New York City. He holds a B.A. degree in History from Yale University, a J.D. from University of Virginia School of Law and an L.L.M. from Cambridge University.

David Belmont | Chief Risk Officer

David Belmont is Chief Risk Officer and has firm-wide oversight and responsibility for all aspects of risk management. Prior to joining Commonfund in 2011, David was Global Head of Hedge Fund Credit for UBS Investment Bank where he led a global team of 45 risk managers and analysts responsible for the risk management of hedge fund and managed fund exposures in the Investment Bank globally. In addition, he was the Head of Risk Management for UBS Prime Services where he led a team of eight risk managers responsible for the market, credit and operational risk of the Prime Brokerage in the Americas.  He was a member of the UBS Prime Brokerage Executive Committee, the Exchange Traded Derivatives Risk Committee, the Prime Services Risk Committee and Prime Services Risk Board. Prior to UBS, David spent 10 years in Asia, 6 of which were in Singapore with Temasek Holdings, Singapore’s $100 billion sovereign wealth fund, most recently as its Chief Risk Officer from 2004- 2007. In addition, he was a Director with Anderson LLP and founded their Asia Financial and Commodity Risk Consulting practice in Singapore, managing a team of 17 professionals across Asia.  He was also a Regional Risk Manager with Black River Asset Management, a multi-strategy hedge fund, and was a sovereign risk underwriter with Citicorp. David is a Chartered Financial Analyst and the author of the soon to be released book Managing Hedge Fund Risk and Financing published by John Wiley and Sons (2011) and of Value Added Risk Management in Financial Institutions (John Wiley and Sons, 2004).  He earned a B.A. from Bowdoin College cum laude and an M.B.A. and a M.S. from Yale University.

Susan J. Carter | President and Chief Executive Officer of Commonfund Capital, Inc.

Sue Carter is President and Chief Executive Officer of Commonfund Capital, overseeing all private capital and distressed capital programs, with over $12.3 billion of private capital commitments from investors since inception. In that capacity, she supervises a total staff of 43. Ms. Carter is a member of the Investment Committee of Commonfund Capital and the Investment Policy Committee of Commonfund Group. Before joining Commonfund Capital in 1989, Ms. Carter was with Morgan Stanley & Co., Incorporated from 1985 to 1989. She was a Senior Associate of Morgan Stanley Venture Capital Group, where she analyzed investments in emerging growth companies, worked with portfolio companies and managed that group’s limited partner relations and reporting. Prior to that, from 1978 to 1985, Ms. Carter was with General Electric Investment Corp., where she evaluated venture capital limited partnership and direct investment opportunities as an analyst for the General Electric Pension Trust’s venture capital program. She is a member of the advisory boards of Chequers Capital and Silver Lake Partners. She also serves as a member of the Executive Advisory Board of the Center for Private Equity and Entrepreneurship, Tuck School of Business. Ms. Carter holds an A.B. degree in Economics and Business from Lafayette College.

Sarah E. Clark | Managing Director, Head of the Strategic Solutions Group

Sarah Clark is Managing Director and Group Head of Commonfund Strategic Solutions.  She has held this position since 2002, and in this capacity, manages a team of investment professionals that advise, implement and monitor outsourced investment solutions for nearly 90 nonprofit clients representing more than $6 billion in assets.  Before managing the Strategic Solutions group, Ms. Clark was a portfolio manager in Commonfund’s fixed income team, responsible for portfolio construction and manager due diligence.  Prior to joining Commonfund in 2000, Ms. Clark was a Vice President at Schroder Investment Management North America, where she was a member of the Fixed Income Investment Strategy Group and was responsible for marketing and client servicing fixed income products. She has over 25 years investment experience, eight years at investment management firms —Bankers Trust Company and Glickenhaus &Co and eight years at consulting companies— Asset Strategy Consulting and InterSec Research Corp. She received an A.B. from Lafayette College.

A.Nicholas De Monico | CEO, Commonfund Hedge Fund Strategies Group 

Nick De Monico is responsible for investment and business leadership for the Commonfund hedge fund portfolios, including funds and separate accounts in directional and relative value strategies. Prior to that, Nick served as Deputy CIO and head of Hedge Fund Strategies. Prior to joining Commonfund in 2002, Nick was Managing Director and Portfolio Manager for Citigroup Alternative Investments, where he was on the management team responsible for $2 billion in hedge fund investments for eight diversified multi-strategy and single-strategy funds. From 1991-2001, he was Managing Director and Senior Portfolio Manager for CDC Investment Management Corp., a subsidiary of CDC IXIS North America where he managed mortgage hedge positions and relative value trading strategies for eight mortgage backed securities funds with approximately $2 billion in assets. Nick also built and managed the CDC Global Relative Value Fund, and was the Executive Vice President supervising Proprietary Trading and Treasury for CDC Capital.  From 1983 – 1991, Nick was a Senior Proprietary Trader in the fixed income arbitrage groups at Merrill Lynch and Chemical Bank (now JP Morgan Chase).  He began his trading career as a fixed income arbitrage trader at Kidder, Peabody & Co. Nick earned his M.B.A. in Finance and Marketing from the Columbia University Graduate School of Business and a B.A. in Political Science from Columbia College.

Jeffrey T. Long, CFA | Managing Director and Head of Equities

Jeff Long oversees all aspects of the marketable equity investment programs, including investment strategy, portfolio management, due diligence and manager selection. Prior to joining Commonfund in 2004, Jeff was Managing Director, Associate Director of Equity Research for Citigroup Asset Management since 2002. He managed equity research analysts covering more than 600 companies globally through quantitative systematic, traditional growth and value, and research analyst driven strategies. Before joining Citigroup in 1998 as a Senior Equity Analyst, Jeff was Vice President, Senior Equity Analyst for J. P. Morgan Securities, Inc. in New York. Earlier, he was Vice President, Head of Financial Advisory for J. P. Morgan Australia, Ltd. in Melbourne, Australia and also held positions with Morgan Guaranty Trust Company in Seoul, Korea and New York. He is a Chartered Financial Analyst, holds a B.S., Applied Mathematics and Economics from Brown University and is a member of the CFA Institute.

Keith W. Luke | Managing Director and Group Head, Strategic Planning and Communications

Keith Luke joined Commonfund in 1999. Keith is responsible for managing Commonfund's corporate branding, corporate communications, marketing and strategic planning activities. In this capacity, he manages a team of marketing communication specialists and oversees firm-wide strategic initiatives including new product and market development. He also serves as a member of the Commonfund Senior Executive Group. Prior to joining Commonfund, Keith was a Vice President at Citibank, holding a number of marketing and planning positions in The Private Bank and Corporate Bank. Prior to Citibank, he was with HSBC USA (formerly Marine Midland Bank) in corporate finance and investment banking. Keith earned a B.A. in Economics at Duke University and an M.B.A. in Finance from NYU Stern School of Business.

Douglas McNeely | President, Commonfund Securities, Inc.

Doug McNeely joined Commonfund in 2010.  In this role, Doug is responsible for the development and management of Commonfund’s client and consultant relationships covering endowments and foundations, operating charities, healthcare systems, pension funds and other long term asset pools – in the U.S., Canada and overseas.  He manages an experienced team of more than 50 relationship and business development staff who advise and provide solutions for a broad range of investment needs.    Prior to joining Commonfund, Doug spent the last six years at Morgan Stanley as Managing Director, as well as, Co-Head of the Institutional Advisory Group/Strategic Client Advisory Team and Co-Head of the Public Fund and Taft-Hartley team. He also served as Executive Director, Morgan Stanley Institutional Securities Group/Prime Brokerage and Head of the Strategic Client Acquisition Team.  Prior to that, Doug was Senior Vice President, Institutional Equities Division at Goldman Sachs. Doug earned a B.A. in Economics from Duke University where he also serves as a Trustee of the Duke Capital Markets Center and the Duke Library.

Alec C. Rapaport | Managing Director,  Head of Fixed Income and Commodities

Alec Rapaport oversees all aspects of the fixed income, distressed debt and commodities investment programs including investment strategy, portfolio management, due diligence and manager selection. Prior to joining Commonfund in 2000, Alec was Director of Fixed Income and Currency Research at Evaluation Associates, an investment consulting firm. At Evaluation Associates, he was responsible for the oversight of domestic and global fixed income, emerging markets debts and currency asset classes. Alec conducted asset allocation studies, manager due diligence and manager searches for Evaluation Associates’ clients. He received his A.B. in Economics from Vassar College and his M.B.A. in Finance with a concentration in International Studies from New York University’s Stern School of Business.

Michael H. Strauss | Chief Investment Strategist and Chief Economist

Michael Strauss joined Commonfund in 1998. Michael has more than 25 years of institutional financial services and investment experience. Previously, he held positions as a top-ranked chief economist and financial market strategist with Sanwa Securities, Yamaichi International (America) Inc., and UBS Securities. Michael received the Market News Forecaster Award as the most accurate "Wall Street" economist for 1997 and has been a speaker on CNN and CNBC and, over the years, has been quoted by Reuters, Dow Jones Capital Markets, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and Barrons. He has been a faculty member at the Treasury Institute for Higher Education (TIHE), the Tax Institute for Colleges and Universities (TIFCU), and the National Association of College and University Business Officers (NACUBO) Conference. He holds a B.S. degree with distinction from Cornell University and a M.B.A. with distinction from New York University.