Aladdin’s credit and economics research team is led by Dr. Scott MacDonald and is complimented by Chief Economist, Kathleen Stephansen, and Dr. Dmitry Udler, Director of Quantitative Risk Management and Research.  The team supports Aladdin’s asset management and broker dealer business units.

Credit and economics research is overwhelmingly driven from internal sources.  Aladdin’s asset selection aligns bottom-up and top-down financial, economic and policy studies. Detailed and dynamic macroeconomic, credit and quantitative analyses provide the framework for a systematic identification of industries and selection of assets.

Outside resources are used to supplement the team’s research capabilities by collaborating with economic policymakers, sell-side analysts, rating agencies, and firms that specialize in fixed-income research and analytics.  Aladdin’s credit and economics research team believes in rapid responses to current issues, major trends, and long-term developments.  The team is also active in meeting with clients and is available for inquiries.

Biographies:

DR. SCOTT MACDONALD, Senior Managing Director, Head of Credit and Economics Research. Dr. MacDonald had served as the Chief Economist and Director at KWR International, consulting for the Korean and Japanese governments and private sector investors prior to joining Aladdin.  Previously he was Director of Sovereign Research at Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette (DLJ).   Before joining DLJ Dr. MacDonald was the Sovereign Analyst at Credit Suisse First Boston focusing on Asian sovereign and state-owned companies.  From 1995 through 1999 he was consistently rated as one of the top analysts by Institutional Investor.  Dr. MacDonald has also worked for the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency on Brady Plan debt re-schedulings for Argentina and Brazil, and European and Canadian banking issues.  He received his Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Connecticut, his MA in Far Eastern Studies from the University of London's School of Oriental and African Studies, and his BA in Political Science (with Honors) and History from Trinity College. Dr. MacDonald has authored, co-authored and edited sixteen books, and has been a commentator on both television and in the financial press.

KATHLEEN STEPHANSEN, Managing Director, Chief Economist. Prior to joining Aladdin in 2009, Ms. Stephansen was a Senior Advisor and task force member for the Asia Society on Rebalancing the US-Asia Economic Relationship, a project that seeks to examine the full effects of the global financial crisis on the US-Asia economic relationship and craft a set of policy recommendations. She had been Head of Global Economic Research at Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC from 2000 to 2009. Prior to 2000, she was senior vice president and co-head of the economic research department in the Fixed Income Division of the Donaldson, Lufkin and Jenrette Securities Corporation. She was also the Firm’s chief international economist. Ms. Stephansen is the 2008-2009 President of the New York Association for Business Economics. She is a member of the National Association for Business Economics (NABE), the Economic Club of New York and the Forecasters Club of New York, and is an executive member of the Financial Women’s Association of San Francisco.  She served on the Council on Foreign Relations advisory committee on the Reform of the International Monetary Fund (Peter B. Kenen, Council Special Report, May 2007). She has co-authored a book of economic commentary: Flying on One Engine: The Bloomberg Book of Master Market Economists (September, 2005). She was published in the Bank For International Settlements (BIS) Papers: Housing Valuations (April 2005). Ms. Stephansen holds an undergraduate degree in economics from the Université Catholique de Louvain (Belgium) and graduate degrees in economics from the University of New Hampshire and the London School of Economics (U.K.), where she did her Ph.D. research.

Dr. DMITRY UDLER, Director, Quantitative Risk Management and Research. Dr. Udler develops and maintains quantitative risk analysis for the Aladdin SMA platform and helps individual clients understand and utilize results of detailed portfolio risk analytics. For this purpose he develops and maintains appropriate analytical tools and methodologies, as well as necessary market data feeds and historical databases. Prior to joining Aladdin, Dr. Udler was head of the Risk Measurement and Back-testing Group at JPM Chase. Before that Dr. Udler had been head of Market Risk Research and Methodology at HSBC, head of Quantitative Credit at BlackRock, Vice President of Model Review at Gen Re Securities and Vice President of Risk Analytics at Citibank. He had also participated in a number of consulting assignments. Dr. Udler’s principal areas of expertise are portfolio risk analytics, pricing and hedging of complex credit derivatives and capital structure arbitrage strategies. Dr. Udler has an MS in Applied Math and Computer Science from Kharkov University and a Ph. D. in Solid State Physics from the Russian Academy of Sciences in Chernogolovka/Moscow. He also spent six years at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois as research professor of Material Science.

ALEXANDER AVTSIN, Director, Research and Structured Credit: Alexander joined Aladdin in July 2007 after receiving his MBA from Columbia Business School. His degree concentrated in fixed income, with emphasis on structuring and quantitative methods. During his studies Alexander interned at Bank of America as a desk analyst on a credit trading desk. Prior to that, Alexander was with Iralex Solutions where he was the Founder for this information technology consulting services firm. Alexander has also served as an officer in Israel’s Air Force. He earned his B.S. degree from Technion - Israel Institute of Technology.