Robert D. Arnott | 2023 Whitehead Award Recipient
Rob Arnott is Founder and Chairman of the Board of Research Affiliates--a global leader in smart beta, factor investing and asset allocation. The firm creates investment strategies and tools based on award-winning research and delivers these solutions in partnership with some of the world’s premier financial institutions. Rob plays an active role in the firm’s research, portfolio management, product innovation, business strategy and client-facing activities. He is a member of the Investment Committee and the Executive Committee of the Board. He is also co-portfolio manager on the PIMCO All Asset and All Asset All Authority funds and the PIMCO RAE™ funds.
Over his career, Rob has endeavored to bridge the worlds of academic theorists and financial markets, challenging conventional wisdom and searching for solutions that add value for investors. He has pioneered several unconventional portfolio strategies that are now widely applied, including tactical asset allocation, global tactical asset allocation, tax-advantaged equity management and the Fundamental Index™ approach to investing. His success in doing so has resulted in a reputation as one of the world’s most provocative practitioners and respected financial analysts.
In 2002, Rob founded Research Affiliates as a research-intensive asset management firm intent on delivering innovative and impactful products and insights. Prior to establishing Research Affiliates, Rob was chair of First Quadrant, LP, which he built up from the former internal money manager for Crum & Forster into a highly regarded quantitative asset management firm. He also was global equity strategist at Salomon Brothers (now part of Citigroup), the founding president and CEO of TSA Capital Management (now part of Analytic Investors, LLC) and a Vice President at The Boston Company.
Rob has published more than 130 articles in such publications as the Journal of Portfolio Management, Harvard Business Review and Financial Analysts Journal, for whom he served as editor in chief from 2002 through 2006. Rob has received eight Graham and Dodd Scrolls, which are awarded annually by CFA Institute to the top Financial Analysts Journal articles of the year. He also has received four Bernstein Fabozzi/Jacobs Levy awards from the Journal of Portfolio Management. He is co-author of The Fundamental Index: A Better Way to Invest (Wiley 2008).
Rob received a BS summa cum laude in economics, applied mathematics and computer science from the University of California, Santa Barbara.