Gary is an entrepreneur, investor and benefactor. He founded Acadian Asset Management in 1986 to offer advanced global investment strategies to institutional investors around the world. He has been investing globally for over 40 years and was one of the first institutional managers to advocate the benefits of disciplined global equity investment for US based investors. He spent nine years at the Putnam Companies and later founded Acadian Financial Research (predecessor of Acadian Asset Management). The firm worked extensively with a number of major investment organizations, including State Street Bank and Trust Company, where it developed and helped manage the first international index matching strategies.
When the formal relationship with State Street ended, Acadian Asset Management began managing institutional assets directly. Since then, the firm grew to over $100 billion of assets under management and continued to be a pioneer in developing a variety of active management strategies for global investing.
Gary retired from Acadian in 2017 so he could devote more time to helping the next generation of entrepreneurs and young companies — mainly MIT spin offs — to achieve their full potential, on the global stage. After a year of following ECM’s progress closely as an active investor, Gary was elected to the ECM Board of Directors in early 2018. He also serves on the Board of Advisors of the Martin Trust MIT Center of Entrepreneurship, among other ambitious enterprises.
Gary has been a member of the editorial board of the Journal of Portfolio Management. His award-winning article, “A New Route to High Returns and Lower Risks,” published in the journal in 1975, was one of the first to advocate significant allocations of the assets of US–based funds to global equities. His other publications include articles in the Financial Analysts Journal, Columbia Journal of World Business, Management Science, The Wall Street Journal, and The MIT Sloan Management Review, as well as chapters in many books.
Gary currently also serves on the boards of several major non-profit institutions, including Boston Children’s Hospital. He has a particular interest in development economics and emerging markets, gained in part from his extensive research experience in India, including being hosted for several months in the Usha Fan Company. He earned a doctorate from MIT’s Sloan School of Management, where he also served on the faculty. His interest in becoming an entrepreneur, and helping others, started when he took the course “New Enterprises” at MIT in the 1960s.