Mark Shenkman | 2023 Lifetime Achievement Award
Mark R. Shenkman established Shenkman Capital Management, Inc. in 1985 and is the firm’s Founder and President. With 54 years of investment experience, and 46 years of high yield investment experience, he is considered one of the pioneers of the high yield bond and loan markets. He is a co-author of two textbooks on the high yield market, entitled High Yield Bonds: Market Structure, Portfolio Management and Credit Risk Modeling (McGraw Hill, 1999) and Leveraged Financial Markets (McGraw Hill, 2010).
Mr. Shenkman was President and Chief Investment Officer of First Investors Asset Management in New York. He also was Co-Manager and Vice President of the High Yield Bond Department at Lehman Brothers Kuhn Loeb in New York, where he established one of Wall Street’s earliest departments dedicated to the researching, distributing and trading of high yield securities. Mr. Shenkman was a research analyst and a portfolio manager at Fidelity Management and Research Company in Boston. From 1978 to 1979, he managed the first high yield bond mutual funds at Fidelity.
Additionally, Mr. Shenkman has been actively involved in not-for-profit and philanthropic activities, including as an emeritus member of the Board of Directors of the UCONN Foundation and former Chairman of the Board; a Board of Trustee Emeritus at The George Washington University; Vice Chairman of the Board at Wilbraham & Monson Academy since 1969; and is a Board of Advisor Emeritus at the College of William and Mary, Mason School of Business.
Mr. Shenkman also serves on the Boards of Trustees of the Museum of the American Revolution and Business Executives for National Security (BENS). He has been a member of the Museum of American Finance's Board of Trustees since 2009. Moreover, he is the Treasurer of the Union League Club of New York.
Mr. Shenkman received a BA in Political Science from the University of Connecticut (1965) and an MBA from The George Washington University (1967). From 1967 to 1969, Mr. Shenkman served as a First Lieutenant in the US Army Computer Systems Command. He also received a Doctor of Humane Letters, honoris causa, from the University of Connecticut (2007). In 2018, the Fixed Income Analyst Society (FIASI) inducted Mr. Shenkman into its Hall of Fame.