In May, Laetitia Pichot de Cayeux, 32, was invited by the White House to participate in an energy innovation conference. She also recently met with the Obama administration’s ambassador-at-large for global women’s issues to talk about ways to level the playing field for female and minority-owned managers. No wonder Washington is calling. Pichot de Cayeux, who holds MBAs from both Harvard and France’s École Supérieure des Sciences Économiques et Commerciales, began her career in London with Goldman Sachs. She worked for multistrategy hedge fund TPG-Axon Capital Management and then spent two years at Renaissance Technologies’ Meritage Group, RenTec founder Simons’ family office. She started Ajna Partners, a New York–based, global long-short equity fund, in mid-2008 and is CEO, CIO and portfolio manager. Ajna returned close to 19 percent, net of fees, that year and was up 13.76 percent for 2009.
Return to index and article, Hedge Fund Rising Stars Shine Through the Gloom.