DAWN FITZPATRICK

Dawn Fitzpatrick spent 25 years at UBS, rising from analyst to CIO of UBS's $400 billion asset management division. She managed global multi-asset portfolios across equities, fixed income, and alternatives.

In 2017, George Soros tapped her to be CIO of Soros Fund Management. The appointment surprised Wall Street.

Soros Fund had been run by legendary macro traders for decades. Hiring a multi-asset institutional investor was a shift in philosophy.

Fitzpatrick broadened the portfolio significantly. She moved beyond the pure macro trading that defined Soros's legacy and added positions in private equity, growth equity, biotech, and cryptocurrency.

Under her watch, Soros Fund invested in companies like Rivian and biotech firms.

In 2021, she confirmed that Soros Fund had invested in Bitcoin, one of the most significant institutional endorsements of cryptocurrency at the time. She described crypto as more than a hedge against inflation, calling it a new asset class entirely.

She also led the fund's ESG integration, incorporating environmental and social factors into investment decisions. This was a natural evolution given George Soros's Open Society philanthropic mission.

Fitzpatrick manages the fund with a team of about 25 investment professionals. Despite overseeing $25 billion, the operation is lean.

She values small teams with high conviction over large research departments.

Soros Fund Management is the vehicle. Founded by George Soros, it manages the personal wealth of Soros and his family.

At $25 billion, it is one of the largest family offices in the world.

Before Soros, she was CIO at UBS O'Connor, UBS's multi-strategy hedge fund division, and later led UBS's broader asset management division with over $400 billion under management.

She serves on the board of the Robin Hood Foundation, one of New York's most prominent poverty-fighting charities.

Multi-asset and multi-strategy. Unlike the classic Soros macro style (big, directional bets on currencies and interest rates), Fitzpatrick runs a diversified portfolio across public equities, private equity, venture capital, fixed income, commodities, and crypto.

She looks for asymmetric opportunities, situations where the upside is many multiples of the downside. The Bitcoin investment is an example.

Limited downside (Soros Fund can afford a total loss on the position), massive upside if crypto becomes a permanent asset class.

She's fundamentally a risk manager. Every position is sized relative to its downside.

The portfolio is constructed to survive any single bad bet.

The crypto call. In 2021, confirming that Soros Fund Management had invested in Bitcoin was one of the most significant institutional crypto endorsements.

The timing was near-perfect, as Bitcoin surged to nearly $69,000 later that year.

More broadly, her diversification of the Soros portfolio has generated strong risk-adjusted returns. By moving beyond pure macro trading into private markets, biotech, and technology, she's modernized one of the most storied investment platforms in history.

The crypto investment also had a downside. Bitcoin crashed from $69,000 to below $16,000 in 2022.

While the position sizing likely limited losses, the timing of the public announcement (near the top) drew criticism.

Some Soros Fund veterans have criticized her diversified approach, arguing it dilutes the concentrated macro bets that made Soros famous. Whether this criticism is fair depends on whether you think the old Soros approach is still viable in modern markets.

Diversification with conviction. She believes in having positions across many asset classes but being deeply researched and high-conviction in each one.

No index-hugging. Every position has a thesis.

Adapt or die. Financial markets change.

The strategies that worked for Soros in the 1990s, big macro bets on currencies, don't work the same way in a world of central bank coordination and algorithmic trading. Fitzpatrick adapted the approach to modern markets.

Small teams, big decisions. She believes that investment committees and consensus-driven processes lead to mediocre returns.

Better to have a small team of excellent thinkers who can move fast and take conviction positions.

Fitzpatrick keeps her family life private. She's married with children and lives in the New York area.

She's spoken about the challenges of balancing a career managing billions with family life, noting that the support of her spouse has been essential.

Fitzpatrick graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a degree in economics. She started at UBS straight out of college and spent her entire career there before joining Soros.

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