Jay Rogers
Jay Rogers - President & Founder
Jay Rogers is an investment management professional with over 17 years working in the financial services industry. His financial background began with a career on the sell side with such firms as Morgan Stanley, Wells Fargo and Bear Stearns. He later worked as Chief Investment Officer for a family office and made his transition to the buy side with a startup long only equity manager. For several years he also worked for an independent third party marketing firm raising money in both traditional and alternative asset classes. Alpha Strategies was formed through a group of highly experienced investment professionals with a shared belief that boutique investment managers as well as qualified investors are still underserved in their access to deep domain expertise in alternative investments and certain long only investment strategies generating consistently high levels of “pure” alpha. It has since grown into a diversified financial services company with specialties in alternative investment consulting, management and marketing.
Jay is a trusted advisor to several family offices here in Southern California and is instrumental in syndicating private investment opportunities among family offices and UHNW investors nationwide. These opportunities include real estate, private equity, and venture capital.
Jay is also a frequent speaker at industry events on family office and alternative investment issues. He has appeared on CNN’s Your Money and is frequently quoted in financial publications including the Wall Street Journal. He has presented to audiences at IMN, Opal Financial, IvyPlus and other investment conferences around the country on alternative investment and family office issues.
Jay holds a BS from Northeastern University and is also a graduate of the USMC Officer Candidate School in Quantico, VA. He holds several securities licenses and has completed several professional courses in Advanced Estate Planning, Asset Allocation, Retirement Planning, 401(k) and Qualified Retirement Plans. He is a member of the CFA Institute and the CFA Society of Orange County (CFAOC). Currently residing in Ladera Ranch with his wife and three sons, he is active in his local community as Vice President of the board for Ladera Ranch Community Services (LARCS), a community services organization. Mr. Rogers is also the Cubmaster for Cub Scout Pack 637 and is a member of the National Eagle Scout Association.
Thomas J. Barrett
Thomas J. Barrett, CFA, CFP®, CPA – Chief Investment Officer
Tom is an experienced and knowledgeable investment management professional with a background in both securities and accounting. He graduated from the University of Virginia with a BS in Accounting and began his career in public accounting where he progressed from auditor to CFO of a real estate investment firm. He transitioned into the investment industry when he joined Payden & Rygel, a Los Angeles based investment management firm, as Corporate Controller and Mutual Funds CFO.
Tom progressed to portfolio management and partner at Arnel & Affiliates, a multi-billion dollar family office, as the Chief Investment Officer. While at Arnel he managed a $1 billion + diverse investment portfolio including hedge funds, private equity, venture capital and concentrated stock positions. He also managed a $70 million Hedge Fund of Funds that successfully outperformed the S&P 500 each year.
After Arnel, Tom became the Chief Investment Officer and CFO for Cymric Family Office Services (now GenSpring), a multi-family office. Cymric provided investment, philanthropic, insurance, tax and estate planning advice to ultra-high net worth families.
Most recently, Tom was a partner with a UBS brokerage team that managed $650 million in client assets. Tom serves as a board member of the Orange County CFA society. He is a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA), Certified Financial Planner (CFP) and California licensed CPA. Tom has been married for 26 years, his daughter is a graduate of USC and his son is a senior at Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo.
Mark Hanley
Mark Hanley – Managing Director
Mark Hanley is an institutional investment professional with over 25 years’ experience across a broad spectrum of roles, asset classes, strategies and vehicles. He has served in portfolio management, strategy design, marketing, investor relations, and senior management. His experience in alternative investments dates back to 1998 where he was a managing director at Weiss, Peck & Greer LLC and chaired the structured products group and his responsibilities included global and U.S financial institutions, pacific rim countries, and institutional investors in the western US. He then served as a partner at Capital Z, investments and sat on the investment committee responsible for seeding managers. He helped build their asset base from inception, within multiple strategies, and served on the board of directors of several alternative investment firms.
Mark’s alternatives expertise includes working with hedge funds, funds of funds, private placements, venture capital, private equity and structured/insurance linked products. His clients have included the largest pension funds in the world, sovereign nations, corporate and public pension funds, endowments & foundations, financial institutions, intermediaries, family offices and ultra-high net worth individuals. He has been a featured speaker at several investor and financial industry conferences around the globe on various alternative investment strategies. In September 2008 he served as consultant to key senators on the banking and finance committee during the credit crisis./
Raised in southern California, Mark attended Laguna Beach high school and the University of California, Los Angeles where he majored in economics and holds the FINRA Series 65 license. He currently resides in Newport Beach, but his career has taken him to Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland, Oregon and New York. He is a member of several hedge fund professional organizations, served on PTA committees and is accredited with both the American Youth Soccer Organization and the National Youth Sports Coaches Association.
Neha Aurora
Neha Aurora, CAIA - Senior Investment Analyst
Neha is an experienced investment professional who brings a diverse set of skills to Alpha Strategies in the area of research and due diligence. Neha is responsible for sourcing, due diligence and analysis of hedge funds and traditional investment managers, as well as providing client education on alternative investments. She also assists our clients with RFP writing, strategic marketing, messaging and development of marketing materials.
In addition to her role at Alpha Strategies, Ms. Aurora is an Investment Consultant at Ascending Solutions providing services to third party marketers, industry consultants, investment advisors, and institutional investors. Her services included investment due diligence, marketing analysis, and client service advisory. Prior to her role at Ascending Solutions, she worked at Meketa Investment Group, a $250 billion pension consultant. Ms. Aurora worked directly with clients as well as in investment manager research, leading the firm's research on hedged strategies. This responsibility included hedged strategy portfolio construction as well as sourcing, due diligence, and analysis of hedge funds and hedge fund of funds. Prior to joining Meketa, she worked at Pacific Alternative Asset Management, fund of hedge funds, as a marketing specialist. While at PAAMCO, she was primarily responsible for product research and analysis. Previously she was a manager at myCFO an ultra-high net worth wealth management firm, directing manager research for all traditional global equity and fixed income strategies. She started her career as an equity analyst at Franklin Templeton, covering the banking sector.
Ms. Aurora received her undergraduate degree in Economics from University of California, San Diego in 1998. Ms. Aurora holds the Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst (CAIA) designation and is a member of the CAIA Association.
