Managing Director of Global Business Development

Caroline Bault, CAIA

Caroline Bault, CAIA is Managing Director of Global Business Development for the Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst (CAIA) Association. Prior to joining the CAIA Association in March 2011, she was a consultant to hedge funds and family offices advising on manager selection, due diligence, product structuring, and strategic and governance issues. Caroline has over 20 years' experience in heading research and sales as well as marketing. She has worked in London, Paris, and Frankfurt and her prior assignments include Director of European Research at Commerzbank in London and Frankfurt and Executive Director at Goldman Sachs International in the Global Equity Research Department in London.

Caroline received an MBA from the University of San Diego, California, in 1987 and a BSBA from the University of Hartford, Connecticut, in 1986. She is a Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst (CAIA), a member of the CFA Institute, and served as Chair of the Education Committee of 100 Women in Hedge Funds in London between 2009 and 2011.

Managing Director, Asia Pacific

Jo Murphy

Jo has been based in Asia for 14 years, predominately in Hong Kong and complimented by a couple of years spent in Singapore. She has held a number of senior regional management positions successfully leading sales, business development, marketing and client relationship management divisions and has both built and managed large and successful regionally located teams.

Jo was expatriated to Hong Kong, with Morgan Stanley, in early 1997 and has worked for a number of global institutions during her tenure. Her experience - across the service intermediary, buy and sale side business environments - has led her to obtain a meaningful network of senior level contacts throughout the region.

Her time spent at HSBC Securities Services, with a service intermediary focus, gave her access to a deep pool of regionally based investors which she then built upon during her role as Asia ex Japan head of sales and product specialist at Deutsche Asset Management for their full suite of alternative investment products.

Jo enjoys a solid industry reputation and is a member of the Alternative Investment Management Association (AIMA) Executive Committee and was recently voted "Asia's most influential women in the alternative sector" and also one of "The 25 most influential people in Asian hedge funds" both by the industry leading AsianInvestor magazine

Director of Business Development – EMEA

Laura Merlini, CAIA

Laura Merlini, CAIA is Director of Business Development EMEA for the Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst (CAIA) Association. Laura joined the CAIA Association in March 2012 with with over seven years of business development and sales experience throughout Europe in the alternative investments indsutry mainly in the areas of fund set-up, administration, banking and custody. She has been working at Credit Suisse (previously Fortis Prime Fund Solutions) in Milan, Madrid and Geneva. She earned the CAIA charter in 2007 and has been an active CAIA proponent and member-volunteer. Laura co-founded the CAIA Iberia chapter (based in Madrid) in 2008 and she has led the Geneva committee of CAIA Switzerland since 2010. She is also a member of the Educational Committee of 100 Women in Hedge Funds Association in Geneva.

Laura earned a BA in Business Administration at Bocconi University in Milan and received the CEMS MIM (Community of European Management Schools) MSc in International Management in 2002.

Director of Industry Relations and Outreach

Lisa Rivera

As the Director of Industry Relations and Outreach, Lisa and her team work to increase industry awareness and understanding of the CAIA Charter throughout the investment community. Before entering the world of non-profits and alternative investments, she spent over a ten years in project management and human resources with technology firms.

Lisa received her B.A. in Anthropology from Smith College, where she also cultivated an avid interest in marine ecology and applied economics. She divides her time between Vermont and Massachusetts.

Director of Business Development - Americas

Bert Cliche

Bert works as the Director of Business Development for the Americas. Bert joined the CAIA association in December 2008 with 23 years of technology experience, over 15 of which were with Wall Street firms. Bert came to the CAIA Association from Merrill Lynch, where as a Director he ran the engineering team for Investment Banking, Research, Human Resources, Legal/ Compliance, and Corporate Technology. Prior roles included SVP and Chief Architect for Equity and Fixed Income Prime Brokerage, Equity/ Fixed Income Sales, and Futures technology areas at Citigroup.

In his spare time, Bert is an on-call fire fighter for the Town of Leverett and also serves as president of the Laurel Hill Drive Property Owners Association. Bert lives in Leverett, MA, with his wife and 3 children.

Director of Industry Relations – Asia

Sebastien Lacroix, CAIA

Sebastien Lacroix, CAIA joined the CAIA association in March 2011 after serving as an Executive Committee member of the CAIA Singapore chapter for several years. Before joining CAIA, Sebastien was working for a Swiss alternative investment company where he was in charge of marketing hedge funds and private equity products to institutional investors and private banks in Asia.

Sebastien started his career by working for a traditional long only asset manager in France. A strong believer in the potential economic growth of Asia and the possibilities offered by alternative investments, he moved to Japan in 2003 to work first for the Japanese government before joining Societe Generale in Tokyo.

Sebastien studied Business and English in France, after which he pursued his studies in the UK, US and Singapore where he received his MBA from INSEAD in 2006. He also studied Japanese at The National Institute for Asian languages in Paris (INALCO) and is a certified scuba diver. He is based in Singapore. He received his CAIA charter in March 2007.

Coordinator of Business Development – Asia

Priya Padma

As the Coordinator of Business Development – Asia, Priya is responsible for supporting the strategic objective of increasing awareness of the CAIA program and charter in Asia by providing key administrative support to the Director of Industry relations, Asia and Managing Director, Asia-Pacific as well as the Asia based Executive Committee and team members.

She coordinates the day-to-day operations of Asia regional office in Singapore and she is also responsible for planning and executing the Educational/Networking Events in Asia for CAIA members and candidates. She is one of the points of contacts for the member/candidate queries with in the Asia-Pacific region.

Priya earned her degree in Statistics from University of Madras. Prior to joining the CAIA Association, she worked for INSEAD and IT organizations in Singapore in various business coordination/administrative roles.

Account Manager

Heather Kane

As Account Manager, Heather supports the strategic objective of increasing awareness of the CAIA program and designation. Her primary projects include the development, organization and maintenance of an industry relations resource center, assisting in the ongoing development of the CAIA client relationship management system, and providing key administrative support to the Outreach Team.

Prior to her role at the CAIA Association, she worked in the nonprofit sector in various organizational and coordinator roles.

She received her bachelor’s degree from Wheaton College (Massachusetts) with a double major in International Relations and French Literature.