Raj Bakhru, CFA, CISSPFounder

United States - New York, New York

I'm a technology evangelist and love tackling automation challenges. I'm excited about the application of AI in the alternatives space: I know first hand the challenges and the opportunity, and I'm excited to build to get after it.

As a society, we need to invest behind this because we have a shrinking labor force (between baby boomers aging out and a sub 2.0 adult:child replacement rate). Every firm I've worked at and with faces labor shortages and needs. We will need to rely on new, advanced technologies, to supplement the people behind it, and new AI-based technologies will enable that.

I'm a software developer by background, starting my career at Goldman's quant hedge funds, later at Highbridge building research and trading systems, and leading software dev at the quant global macro firm, Kepos Capital.

I started a cyber consulting firm in 2014 that was acquired by ACA in 2015. We grew that business from 0 to 700 or so clients in what was some of the most fun I've had in my career. I moved on to run ACA's regtech solutions (ComplianceAlpha), launch new businesses like ESG, and oversee corporate strategy and M&A, completing nearly a dozen acquisitions. I co-led ACA's deal process resulting in the transaction of ACA to Genstar for well over $1b.

In this journey, I've had the honor of leading teams ranging from 2 to 500 working with me. I've overseen sales and marketing, product mgmt, consulting and managed service delivery, software dev, IT, security, and corp dev groups. Across all those groups, I had the opportunity to learn from many talented folks, and am thankful for their investment in me.

Most importantly, I've had fun in exploring new things, spotting and tackling opportunities, and learning along the way with good company (the people and the firms).