AIMA Appoints New Chair and Deputy Chair of Investor Steering Committee

The Alternative Investment Fund Management Association’s (AIMA) Investor Steering Committee has appointed Michelle McGregor Smith and Kurt Silberstein as its new chair and deputy chair (ISC), respectively.

The committee features leading institutional investors in hedge funds from around the world and undertakes educational initiatives.

McGregor-Smith is chief executive of British Airways Pension Investment Management, and Silberstein is managing director, Alternative Investments, Ascent Private Capital Management, a subsidiary of U.S. Bank. She is also 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.

McGregor-Smith 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, 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.

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.