Meet Our Investment Team
“Successful, value-based investment strategies must integrate traditional bottom-up analyses with an objective, quantitatively defined Global Value Framework.”
SIMON NOCERA, Founder, Principal & Chief Investment Officer
Simon founded Lumen Advisors in March 2002. Prior to Lumen, Simon has been the Co-chief investment officer, global emerging markets debt and Managing Director of Dresdner RCM Global Investors which he joined in January 1999. He had previously been working at Soros Fund Management in 1998 where he was an advisor and portfolio manager for the Quantum Emerging Growth Fund.
From 1992 to 1997, Simon was CIO for Emerging Market Fixed Income at LGT where total assets in this product reached over $1.5 billion. Earlier in his private sector career, Simon served as Global Strategist for Putnam’s fixed income group, where he built the EM business to over $1bn.
From 1984 to 1990, Simon was an economist at the International Monetary Fund, and from 1982 to 1984 he was an economist for the European Economic Commission working as a technical advisor for Sub Sahara African Governments.
In 1994, Simon was named the “Best Manager of the Year” by Business Week magazine and in 1996 his Fund was awarded the Five Stars ranking by Morningstar. In 2005, the Lumen Global Value Fund, Ltd. was named the best Relative Value Strategy by Global Fund Analysis.
Simon sits on the Advisory Board of the Master of Science in Financial Analysis and Investment Management Program at the School of Economics and Business Administration at Saint Mary’s College. Simon holds a Doctorate in Economics from the University of Milan, Italy and a degree in Electronics Engineering from I.T.I.S. in Vimercate, Italy. He is fluent in French, Italian and English and proficient in Portuguese and Spanish.
MARIANNE O, CFA, Co-founder, Principal & Portfolio Manager
Marianne co-founded Lumen in March 2002. Prior to Lumen, she has been the Assistant Director and fixed income analyst for emerging markets debt at Dresdner RCM Global Investors from January 1999 to January 2002. At DRCM, she was responsible for analyzing and investing in emerging countries sovereign bonds, currencies and corporates, with focus on Asia. Marianne has twenty years of experience in researching and investing in emerging markets debt, stocks and currencies.
Prior to joining Dresdner RCM, she was working at Tradewinds Financial Corporation as an emerging market analyst in 1998. Previously, Marianne worked with Simon Nocera at LGT from 1994 to 1997 as part of the team responsible for sovereign, currency and corporate analyses and investments in emerging markets.
Before joining LGT, Marianne was an Assistant Vice President at Citicorp International Limited in Hong Kong where she was involved in loan origination and syndication in Asian capital markets from 1987 to 1992.
Marianne co-chairs the 100 Women in Hedge Funds, Northern California chapter where she also leads the Senior Practitioner Outreach effort. Marianne holds a Masters in Business Administration in Finance from University of California, Berkeley, a Masters of Arts Degree and a Bachelor of Arts in Economics (Hons) from the University of Cambridge in England and is a Chartered Financial Analyst. She is fluent in Cantonese and proficient in Mandarin.
AARON LOW, CFA, Principal & Strategist
Aaron joined Lumen in 2005 as Principal, overseeing Asia strategies and investments. Prior to that, he was a senior portfolio manager at PIMCO where he started PIMCO Asian portfolio management and trading operations and was Head of Asia x Japan investment division, managing global and emerging balanced and bond funds. He was part of the PIMCO team which won several Morningstar and Lipper investment awards for performance in Global markets and Emerging Bonds. Aaron was named the “Most Astute Investor” by the Benchmark Survey in 2003-04 and was co-lead of the team that won the PIMCO cyclical forum investment strategy series from 2003-2004.
He was Head of Fixed Income, Asia and senior portfolio manager for RCM Global Investors (San Francisco & Singapore) since 1997. Aaron was also responsible for starting RCM’s Asian institutional portfolio operations.
From 1991 to 1997, Aaron was a principal at IFER Associates working on capital markets and trading strategies for Citibank, Eriksson, Singapore Stock Exchange, SIMEX and regional banks.
Aaron is currently Chairman of the Board of Governors at the CFA Institute, Board Director at the Wealth Management Institute and Board Trustee at the Government of Singapore Pension Fund. He is also chief Advisor to Minsheng TH Asset Management in Shanghai. Previously he was Senior Advisor to Harvest Fund Management Company in Beijing and Bosera Asset Management in Shenzhen.
Aaron has a PhD in Financial Economics from the Anderson School, UCLA, is a Chartered Financial Analyst. He has also attended business schools director programs at Stanford and Chicago and is an engineering bachelors from the National University of Singapore.