AIMA announces new Chair and Deputy Chair of Investor Steering Committee

Date: Friday, December 6, 2013
Author: AIMA Press Release

AIMA, the global hedge fund association, has announced a new Chair and Deputy Chair of the AIMA Investor Steering Committee (ISC), which features leading institutional investors in hedge funds from around the world and undertakes educational initiatives. 

The new Chair is Michelle McGregor-Smith, Chief Executive, British Airways Pension Investment Management Ltd, and the Deputy Chair is Kurt Silberstein, Managing Director, Alternative Investments, Ascent Private Capital Management, a subsidiary of U.S. Bank.  

Ms McGregor-Smith is an adviser to the Investment Committee of the Health Foundation, a UK based charity, and a member of the UK Advisory Council of the CFA Institute. A member of the ISC since 2009, she co-authored the ISC’s investors’ views and preferences paper in 2011 and wrote the foreword to Beyond 60/40: The evolving role of hedge funds in institutional investor portfolios, which was published in May 2013.


She said: “I have enjoyed working with my ISC colleagues and AIMA on the various projects and research initiatives undertaken in the last few years, and I look forward to collaboration with a broadened ISC which will add new insights and experience to further the work of the Committee.”

Prior to joining Ascent in August 2011, Mr Silberstein worked for 12 years at CalPERS. He has been a key contributor to many of the ISC’s publications over the years, including being a co-author of the first edition of AIMA’s Roadmap to Hedge Funds guide for investors in 2008.

Mr Silberstein said: “I look forward to working with AIMA and the ISC in furthering its efforts to providing information and addressing specific issues associated with investing in alternatives."


Their appointments coincide with an expansion of the ISC, which now includes more than 20 institutional investor members who collectively manage over $800 billion in assets. 

AIMA CEO Andrew Baker said: “I would like to pay tribute to Michelle and Kurt, who have been among the ISC's strongest supporters in recent years. The ISC now comprises pension funds, endowments and sovereign wealth funds from every region of the world and goes from strength to strength.”


For media enquiries, please contact:
Christen Thomson, Deputy CEO, Head of External Affairs
Tel: +44 (0)20 7822 8380
Email: cthomson@aima.org



About AIMA 
As the global hedge fund association, the Alternative Investment Management Association (AIMA) has over 1,300 corporate members (with over 7,000 individual contacts) worldwide, based in over 50 countries. 

Members include hedge fund managers, fund of hedge funds managers, prime brokers, legal and accounting firms, investors, fund administrators and independent fund directors. They all benefit from AIMA’s active influence in policy development, its leadership in industry initiatives, including education and sound practice manuals and its excellent reputation with regulators worldwide. 

AIMA is a dynamic organisation that reflects its members’ interests and provides them with a vibrant global network. AIMA is committed to developing industry skills and education standards and is a co-founder of the Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst designation (CAIA) – the industry’s first and only specialised educational standard for alternative investment specialists. For further information, please visit AIMA’s website, www.aima.org.