MICHAEL GELBAND

Gelband earned a bachelor's in business administration from the University of Georgia and an MBA from the University of Michigan's Ross School of Business in 1983. He joined Lehman Brothers that same year and spent most of his career there until 2008, holding roles including Global Head of Fixed Income and Global Head of Capital Markets.

He left before Lehman's collapse and later became Global Head of Fixed Income at Millennium Management, running the recruitment, trading, and risk of its huge fixed income business. Seen as a potential successor to founder Izzy Englander, Gelband left after being denied an ownership stake.

In early 2017 he co-founded ExodusPoint Capital Management with Hyung Lee, and its 2018 debut raised around $8 billion, the largest hedge fund launch ever.

ExodusPoint Capital Management, Millennium Management (former), Lehman Brothers (former)

Gelband runs ExodusPoint as a multi-manager platform, meaning the firm hires many teams of traders and spreads risk across them rather than betting on one person's calls. His own specialty is fixed income, which covers bonds, interest rates, and related markets.

The model relies on tight risk controls, since a platform of dozens of teams needs strict limits to avoid one blowup sinking the whole ship. His real skill, honed at Millennium, is spotting, hiring, and managing trading talent.

ExodusPoint aims for steady returns with low correlation to stock markets.

The ExodusPoint launch is the headline win. In 2018 the firm raised around $8 billion at its debut, the largest hedge fund launch in industry history, driven by Gelband's reputation from Millennium.

The firm has since grown to roughly $11 billion in assets and delivered strong recent performance. Turning a career of managing other people's trading talent into an $11 billion firm he co-owns is the payoff.

Gelband's story is less about a trading blunder and more about a career gamble that could have flopped. Leaving Millennium, one of the most successful hedge funds ever, to start from scratch was a huge risk.

Early on ExodusPoint's returns were modest and some questioned whether the record-breaking launch had raised more money than it could deploy well. The firm's stronger recent years have quieted that doubt, but the slow start showed that a giant launch is a burden as much as a blessing.

Gelband believes the edge in modern hedge funds comes from people and process, not a single star trader. He built ExodusPoint on the idea that assembling and managing many skilled teams, with rigorous evaluation of their process and risk, produces more durable results.

He learned this running Millennium's fixed income business, and he wanted ownership in the enterprise he helped build. When he could not get it, he built his own.

His philosophy prizes diversification across strategies and strict risk management over big directional gambles.

Gelband keeps his family life private. Publicly he is known through his professional record and his ties to the University of Michigan rather than personal details.

Gelband earned a bachelor's degree in business administration from the University of Georgia and an MBA from the University of Michigan's Ross School of Business in 1983. He later served as chairman of the Ross School Advisory Board, staying closely tied to the school that trained him.