Our People
Investment Team
- John D. Freeman, Chairman, CEO and CIO
- Thomas M. Anichini, ASA, CFA, Director of Portfolio Management
- Cathy Burdick, Head Trader
- Manider Hunjan, CFA, Director of Research
- Scott Scheffler, Senior Research Advisor
Senior Management
- Peter J. Johnson, Director of Client Service & Marketing
- Christopher P. Siriani, Director of Operations & Chief Compliance Officer
- Timothy O. May, Director of Investment Systems
Consultants
Investment Team
John D. Freeman, Chairman, CEO and CIO
John joined the firm in December of 1996 and oversees Freeman’s investment strategies, product research, and client relations. He heads the firm’s Management Committee and is active in portfolio management. John has published numerous articles in professional journals, primarily dealing with implementation of investment strategies.He has strong professional interests in the areas of pension fund structure, style indexes, and benchmarking. Over 26 years of professional investment experience include eight years as Manager of Consulting Services at Barra, where he directed proprietary, fee-based projects for institutional investment organizations. His responsibilities included active equity strategy development, investment strategy evaluation, and independent confirmation of research results.
Before joining the firm, John served as Vice President and Portfolio Manager at Martingale Asset Management. His work involved product development, portfolio management, and client service. John serves on the Advisory Committee of The Journal of Investing and serves on the board of the Research Foundation of the CFA Institute. He earned an M.A. in Economics at the University of Michigan, and holds a B.A. in Economics from the University of Vermont.
Thomas M. Anichini, ASA, CFA, Director of Portfolio Management
Tom joined the firm in February of 2005. As Director of Portfolio Management, he is responsible for overall portfolio implementation and construction across all core strategies; he also serves on the Management Committee and the Best Execution Committee. Tom ensures that portfolios optimally reflect the insights from our quantitative investment process, conform to client guidelines and adhere to internal risk management controls. He also assists in the firm’s client service efforts.
Prior to joining Freeman, Tom was a portfolio manager with Westpeak Global Advisors, where he managed institutional quantitative equity portfolios, including Long/Short strategies, and contributed to research and client service. In addition, Tom has held pension consultant positions with investment consultants Ennis Knupp & Associates and Mercer Investment Consulting, where he researched, evaluated and recommended investment managers to plan sponsors. Tom earned an M.B.A. (Finance Concentration) at the University of Chicago’s Graduate School of Business, and holds a B.S. in Actuarial Science from the University of Illinois. He is an Associate of the Society of Actuaries.
Cathy Burdick, Head Trader
Cathy joined the firm in May of 2008. She is responsible for managing the process and systems used to implement the firm’s various trading strategies. She is a member of the Best Execution Committee. Cathy maintains all trading algorithms and direct market access services. Additionally, she reviews and manages all traditional brokerage relationships. Cathy also manages custodial bank relationships, helps coordinate the firm’s external audits and is actively involved in the firm’s compliance process. Cathy has approximately 21 years combined experience in operations/portfolio accounting, hedge fund administration and equity trading.
Prior to joining Freeman, Cathy served as Operations Manager and Head Trader at Harlingwood Capital Management, where her main responsibilities included the execution of trades, managing projects to identify areas of risk vulnerabilities and the daily supervision of operational functions. She began her institutional experience at Nicholas-Applegate where she worked in many departments including Operations, Legal, Marketing and Investments. Cathy received her B.A. in Finance and Banking from National University.
Manider Hunjan, CFA, Director of Research
Manny joined the firm in February of 2001. He is a portfolio manager for the firm’s alternative strategies and is a member of the firm’s Management Committee. Manny is responsible for reviewing the technical components of our investment strategies and enhancements of our dynamic multi-factor model. He has also been instrumental in the development of a new long/short and long only volatility-based strategy. Manny has developed a general purpose software framework for dynamic factor modeling that is also used for Alpha generation and assembly, performance attribution and other research projects.
Prior to joining Freeman, he gained valuable experience managing and leading software development teams with a strong focus on system modeling/simulation and data analysis, working as Software Development Manager at WebMD Corp., Lead Software Engineer at Xerox and Software Engineering Supervisor at TRW. He has earned a M.S. degree in Computational Finance/Computer Science from the Oregon Graduate Institute. He also holds an M.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Hawaii and a B. Tech in Mechanical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi.
Scott Scheffler, Senior Research Advisor
Scott joined the firm in October of 2007. As Senior Research Advisor, he is responsible for developing and enhancing the firm’s proprietary risk models, building additional proprietary equity risk models (U.S. and International), and integrating the risk properties, correlation and factors into the firm’s well developed back-test environment. Scott has over 31 years experience in SAS programming and approximately 15 years experience managing equity and fixed income risk model research.
Prior to joining Freeman, he spent over 19 years at Barra, last serving as Executive Director of Information Technology where he managed the planning and execution of the migration of Barra hardware infrastructure (utilized for research, model building, production data management and delivery) into the Morgan Stanley hardware environment after MSCI acquired Barra. In addition, he managed the development of the Barra USE3 equity model. He designed the system architecture and established the coding and documentation standard for Barra’s global offices in London, Hong Kong and the U.S. Scott graduated Summa Cum Laude from the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh with a double major in Mathematics and Philosophy. He also holds an M.A. in Statistics with a focus on Linear Models, Discrete Multivariate Analysis and Time Series from the University of California, Berkeley. He has completed Ph.D. coursework in Statistics and Philosophy. He is co-author of U.S. Patent paper Method and Apparatus for an Integrative Model of Multiple Asset Classes issued in April, 2006.
Senior Management
Peter J. Johnson, Director of Client Service & Marketing
Pete joined Freeman in December, 2008 and has over 25 years of experience in investment management, focusing on client service, sales and marketing with leading financial institutions. He serves on the firm’s Management Committee.
Prior to joining Freeman, Pete was a principal with Investment Science Corp. where he led that firm’s marketing efforts after a successful fifteen-year stint at Nicholas-Applegate Capital Management (NACM). At NACM, he served as Managing Director for Client Service and Sales, among other positions. After the Allianz Group acquired NACM in 2000, Pete, a partner in NACM since 1995, joined their executive committee. His experience at NACM included client service, sales and marketing activities in the U.S. and global markets and management of the firm’s institutional business. Pete also served as Marketing Director for Pacific Financial Management Corporation (PFAMCo), where he was responsible for new business development and client servicing for all PFAMCo firms, which included Pacific Investment Management Company (PIMCO), Cadence Capital, NFJ and Parametric. During the late 1980s, Pete marketed Fidelity Investments’ broker-distributed "Plymouth Funds" and served as a financial consultant for Merrill Lynch in Dallas, Texas. He holds a degree in Business Management from the University of Notre Dame and holds a Series 65 license.
Christopher P. Siriani, Director of Operations & Chief Compliance Officer
Chris joined Freeman in December of 2008 and is responsible for compliance standards, operations staff, data administration and performance measurement. Chris is a member of the Management Committee and chairs the Best Execution Committee.
Prior to joining Freeman, Chris spent three years with Investment Science Corporation. Prior to that, he served as Director of Operations for Performance Measurement and Data Administration at Nicholas-Applegate Capital Management (NACM). At NACM, he established operational performance metrics and benchmarks for functional groups to limit operational risk, improve processes and measure success. Prior to joining NACM, Chris served as the Senior Fund Accountant and Assistant Project Manager at AIM Management Group, Inc. He also served as a Senior Mutual Fund Accountant for State Street Bank & Trust Company. Chris graduated from Boston College with a degree in Economics, holds a Series 65 license, and is a CFA Level II candidate.
Timothy O. May, Director of Investment Systems
Tim joined Freeman in December of 2008 to oversee various Investment Technology functions and develop multiple analytical tools. Tim also serves on the firm’s Management Committee.
Prior to joining Freeman, he worked with Investment Science Corporation for nine years, where he assisted with company operations, served on the investment management team and managed and scheduled all engineering resources. Prior to joining Investment Science Corporation, he served for five years as Marketing Director for Starbase Corporation, one of the top three configuration management systems in the industry. Starbase was acquired by Borland Corporation in 2002. He founded and served as President for Roundtable Software, Inc., which was then sold to Starbase Corporation in 1994. Roundtable Software offered a software configuration management and deployment system for applications written in Progress 4GL. Tim also founded or co-founded Progressive Solutions, Inc. in 1986; Swiftsure Data Systems, Inc., at which he designed and implemented compensation cost applications; and Big Byte Software, Inc., which he sold to Pinetree Software, Inc. Tim holds a diploma in Business Administration from the British Columbia Institute of Technology and an honor’s diploma in Mechanical Engineering. He holds a Series 65 license.
Consultants
Ming Wang, M.A., Senior Research Advisor
Ming joined Freeman in December of 1996. As Senior Research Advisor, Ming’s primary focus is on the development of research tools and methodology used in the development of equity valuation and strategies. He has over 25 years of investment experience including eight years in which he worked with Richard Brignoli and Harry Markowitz as Vice President and Assistant Director of Research at Brignoli Models, Inc. He also served as Assistant Vice President and Senior Quantitative Portfolio Manager at TIAA-CREF Investment Management, Inc. which managed over $50 billion in stocks. Ming has a masters degree in Physics from Princeton University and a masters degree in Mathematics from the Courant Institute.
Michael F. Korns, Senior Research Advisor
Mike joined Freeman in December of 2008 and is responsible for developing investment technology enhancements and various research initiatives, including the DeepGreen™ system.
Prior to joining Freeman, Mike worked with Investment Science Corporation, where he created his core technology platform, DeepGreen™. Mike previously served as Vice President and Chief Scientist for Objective Software Inc., where he developed Spreadbase™ and Dynatalk™. He has worked for Xerox Imaging Corporation, designing the character recognition engine for the JetReader OCR™ product, as well as the design and development of the PreScript™; image processing control language for the Xerox intelligent scanner product. As Vice President and Chief Scientist for Tymshare Transaction Services Corporation, he was responsible for the MIS Division in the Tymshare subsidiary, which handled bank credit card transactions for the Western United States. He served as a research scientist for IBM during the late sixties and early seventies. Mike speaks fluent German and holds multiple patents. His work has been published in numerous technology publications and peer-reviewed academic journals. He holds his Series 65 license.