As of June 1, 2025

Vitaliy N. Katsenelson, CFA
Vitaliy joined IMA in 1997. He received both his BS and MS degrees in finance from the University of Colorado at Denver. His two books, Active Value Investing and The Little Book of Sideways Markets, were published by John Wiley & Sons and have been translated into eight languages. His articles have appeared in Barron’s, Financial Times, Forbes, Business Insider, CNBC, The Globe & Mail, and MarketWatch, among others. Vitaliy has also been a guest on CNBC, Fox Business, BNN, and Yahoo! Finance. Vitaliy has close to 20 years of investment experience and has taught a graduate investment class at the University of Colorado at Denver. He also speaks to investor organizations in the US and abroad. Vitaliy is a CFA charterholder and has served on the board of the CFA Society of Colorado. Forbes magazine called him “the new Benjamin Graham”.

Harvey Sawikin
Harvey Sawikin co-founded Firebird in 1994. He is a lead manager of Firebird’s Eastern Europe and Russia funds. He also serves on the Management Boards of the Amber private equity funds. Before founding Firebird, he was a clerk on the U.S. Court of Appeals and an M&A specialist at the law firm of Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz. Harvey is a graduate of Columbia University (Magna Cum Laude) and Harvard Law School (Cum Laude), where he was an editor of the Harvard Law Review. Harvey is a member of the Visiting Committees of both the Photographs and the Modern and Contemporary Art Departments of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and a member of the Board of Directors of Film at Lincoln Center.

Andrew Stotz, PhD, CFA
Andrew Stotz, PhD, CFA is the CEO of A. Stotz Investment Research, a company that provides institutional and high net worth investors with ready-to-invest stock portfolios that aim to beat the benchmark through superior stock selection.

Berna Barshay
Berna has three decades of experience as a hedge fund analyst, portfolio manager, and trader. She has been a research contributor to the Public investing app and the author of the Empire Financial Daily, a financial newsletter with over 200,000 subs. Berna began her Wall Street career at Goldman. She has her BA from Princeton and MBA from Harvard. She lives in New York City with her husband, daughter, and their three rescue dogs.

Evan Tindell
Evan is our Co-founder and Chief Investment Officer. He develops firm-wide investment strategy and performs both bottom-up research and portfolio management for the flagship Fundamental Value strategy. ​Evan worked for 7 years at Ballentine Capital, where he was the lead equity analyst at the value-oriented long/short equity fund. Prior to that he spent 3 years as a professional poker player, where his successes included a 10th place finish at a European Poker Tour event. He graduated in 2007 with a BS in Mechanical Engineering from MIT, where he was a four time All-American in tennis.

Adam Siegel
Adam founded Euclid Investments LP, a family investment partnership focused on credit and special situations, in late 2013.  Prior to founding Euclid, Adam spent 10 years in senior commercial roles both on the commodity trade desk and principal investment team for JP Morgan and Louis Dreyfus Highbridge Energy. Adam received his undergraduate degree in economics from Johns Hopkins University and his Juris Doctor degree from Boston College School of Law.

Jeff Gilbert, CPA
Jeff Gilbert, CPA, is an Executive Director of Investigations, specializing in forensic auditing, a field he has been working in for over 15 years. Employing a synthesis of practical expertise and genuine case illustrations, he heads educational workshops across a spectrum of institutions, including the CPA Western School of Business and various universities, and conducts numerous sessions at conferences. Jeff mentors aspiring entrepreneurs, furnishing them with strategic counsel to realize their aspirations. Additionally, he serves in an advisory capacity for hedge funds and private equity enterprises.

Tim Staermose
After finishing his studies in Australia, Tim Staermose spent 25 years working in equity research and managing money in Asia, including South Korea, The Philippines, Hong Kong, and Indonesia. After finding inspiration on a 2018 trip back to Tanzania, where he was born, in 2020 Tim launched the African Lions Fund, to invest in sub-Saharan Africa frontier market equities. African Lions Fund has achieved a CAGR of 14%+ since inception, and grown from $3.9mn at its outset to be managing more than $21mn today. Tim is based in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania with his wife and two daughters. 

Michael Fritzell, CFA
Based in Singapore, over the past decade, Michael is the author of Asian Century Stocks, a Substack publication covering Asian equities. Before launching Asian Century Stocks, Michael was a portfolio manager at a European family office called Dunross & Co and an analyst at a Shanghai-based fund manager called Asia Growth Investors, now part of a larger group called East Capital.

David Kessler
David Kessler is a Portfolio Manager with Robotti & Company Advisors, LLC.  Prior to joining Robotti & Company, David was a Research Analyst Consultant with Aquamarine Capital, a value-oriented hedge fund. He also held portfolio management roles with Rochdale Investment Management and Morgan Stanley. David received an MBA from Columbia Business School and was a member of Columbia’s Applied Value Investing Program.  As an MBA student, David co-launched Columbia’s first student-run investment newsletter, “Graham and Doddsville.” He also gained valuable experience as a summer intern with Ruane, Cunniff & Goldfarb (Sequoia Fund). David graduated from the University of Maryland with a B.S. in Finance and Marketing.

Gancanapol (Pon) Van Compernolle
Investment experience for 20 years, both advising and managing funds on behalf of Institutions and HNW Individuals, most recently leading SCB Private Funds. He had served as a Director of Voxtron International for nearly a decade and sits as an Independent Director and member of Audit Committees in listed companies and Investment Funds. Pon holds an M.Sc. in Financial Analysis from the University of San Francisco, a B.Econ. degree from the University of Sydney and is a member of the Thai Institute of Directors. Author of “360: Thailand.”

Bjorn Beam
Bjorn Beam is a geopolitical and technology expert at Arcano Partners, with over a decade of experience in the intelligence community, including extensive work as a CIA officer where he served in the White House. At the CIA, he specialized in paramilitary and covert operations, notably disrupting North Korea’s weapons programs by sabotaging their systems and facilitating Western analysis of their technology. He also served on the Presidential Daily Briefing Staff, informing the President and senior cabinet members on global intelligence events. Bjorn advises NATO countries on geopolitical and technology issues and helps multinational companies build resilient strategies against digital and geopolitical disruptions.