LOS ANGELES--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Karyn Williams, Ph.D., a 20-year institutional investment industry veteran with vast experience as a chief investment officer, institutional consultant, and trustee, today announced the launch of Hightree Advisors, LLC, headquartered in Los Angeles. Dr. Williams is the Founder and Managing Principal. Mike Dudkowski, formerly a senior consultant at Towers Watson Investment Services, Inc., has joined Hightree Advisors as Managing Principal and will head the East Coast office.
Hightree Advisors is an independent investment consultancy helping organizations – endowments, foundations, hospital systems, insurance companies, family offices and pension funds – improve the effectiveness of every investment dollar that stands behind that organization’s purpose. Hightree works closely with clients’ fiduciaries and finance teams to help identify and create measurable value through improved risk allocation, governance, and cost management over the investment lifecycle. Hightree designs investment programs that are transparent, disciplined and easy to implement. As an independent consultancy, Hightree is a true client advocate. The firm does not offer or manage investment products and it is not conflicted by any other business lines.
Dr. Williams said, “We are beyond excited to launch Hightree Advisors and serve organizations that want to create material value by improving the effectiveness of their investment programs. Hightree embodies my twenty years of hands-on experience in the institutional marketplace, which has given me a deep understanding of the context and challenges allocators face. Mike and I have had the privilege of working with many finance teams to create substantial value, and I am thrilled that he has joined me to do this for our clients at Hightree.”
Williams continued, “Given the difficult and rapidly changing environment for investment management today, I believe the time is right to launch a consultancy with an independent view, no conflicts of interest, and a fresh approach using novel measures of value creation1. At Hightree Advisors, we are empowered to share – directly, unfiltered, and unconflicted – how the investment industry actually works and to demonstrate how the investment process can be more efficient and ultimately more effective.”
Dudkowski commented, “I am extremely excited to join Hightree Advisors to leverage my twenty-five years of experience helping institutional clients create and implement effective investment programs. As an independent organization, Hightree’s singular focus is on the investment success of our clients. When our clients succeed, we succeed. The firm’s entrepreneurial culture and commitment to innovation provide a tremendous platform for helping organizations invest effectively.”
Hightree Leadership
Karyn Williams and Mike Dudkowski have a proven track record of designing and implementing effective investment programs for a variety of organizations and across many market cycles. They have been sought for their practice, guidance and advice by endowments, foundations, hospital systems, insurance companies, family offices and pension funds seeking to make meaningful, sustainable improvements to their investment programs.
Bios for Karyn and Mike can be found at: www.hightreeadvisors.com/leadership.
Hightree is capitalized and advised by experienced investors and industry experts who share the firm’s vision and principles.
About Hightree Advisors
Hightree Advisors is an independent institutional investment consultancy committed to helping organizations identify and create sources of value in their investment programs through improved risk deployment, governance and by managing costs over the investment lifecycle. Hightree helps organizations – endowments, foundations, hospital systems, insurance companies, family offices and pension funds – improve their investment effectiveness by designing investment programs that are transparent, disciplined and easy to implement. Hightree does not offer investment products or asset management services and is not conflicted by any other business lines. As a true client advocate, Hightree seeks to make it easier for fiduciaries to quantify and improve expected outcomes while building investment know-how within their organizations.
Visit Hightree Advisors at www.hightreeadvisors.com and on LinkedIn.
1 Karyn Williams and co-authors published a paper available on SSRN – FEN (Social Science Research Network – Financial Economics). The paper, “π Portfolio Management: Reaching Goals while Avoiding Drawdowns” proposes a unique approach to portfolio selection that explicitly takes into account investors' simultaneous investment objectives, such as achieving target return levels and avoiding specific drawdown limits. The paper can be found here.
