FINANCIAL MARKETS
COMPASS

Dr. Ryan Held (Founding Partner)

Physics ETH Zurich, PhD ETH Zurich / MBA ESADE Barcelona

Founded Dufour Capital AG in 2011 together with Sascha Freimüller. He has more than 20 years of experience in portfolio management and computer science. Before founding Dufour Capital, he worked at RMF and Man Investments in Switzerland, where he developed quantitative asset allocation projects and systematic trading strategies. He began his career in nanophysics research at ETH Zurich and continued it as a post-doctoral researcher at Yale University in the field of Quantum Computing.

He is the author of over 30 publications, holder of several patents and co-author of three FinTech textbooks. Ryan holds a PhD in physics from ETH Zurich and an MBA from ESADE Business School in Barcelona, Spain.

Sascha Freimüller (Founding Partner)

GMP, Harvard Business School / BSc Chemistry, UAS Zurich

Sascha brings over 20 years of experience in portfolio and risk management. Before founding Dufour Capital, he served as Senior Risk Manager at RMF and Man Investments in Switzerland and was a Deputy Member of Man Group's Global Risk Committee. Prior to that, he worked at Swiss Re, where he contributed to the development of new risk models and managed a chemical laboratory in Ohio, USA. He began his career at ETH Zurich as an assistant teacher and project manager in scientific consulting, advising pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies. Sascha is co-author of three FinTech textbooks, author of several academic publications from his time at ETH, and serves on the advisory boards of two AI-native ETH Zurich spin-offs in the TechBio and RegTech sectors.

He is an alumnus of Harvard Business School (General Management Program) and holds a Bachelor of Science in Chemistry from the Zurich University of Applied Sciences.

Paul Kimball (Senior Partner)

MBA, Chicago Booth, Chicago, USA

After nine years at First Chicago, the last three as Chief FX Dealer of its London branch, Paul joined Morgan Stanley in 1982 to co-found the FX business. From 1982 to 1992 he was responsible for global trading, and in 1992 he was elevated to Co-Head of the Global Business.

In 1995 Paul was appointed by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York (US-Fed) to the Foreign Exchange Committee, a global FX industry body that sets best practices. He chaired this important global body from 1998 to 2001. In 2000, at the direction of the industry group, he helped form, fund and stand up a global settlement platform (CLS) in order to significantly reduce daily FX settlement risk.

After leaving Morgan Stanley in 2007, Paul became a founding partner of Stone Milliner Asset Management (2011), a USD 6 billion global macro hedge fund with offices in Pfäffikon, Switzerland, and London, UK. He later joined Dufour Capital in Zurich as an Advisor.

Paul holds a B.A. from the University of Notre Dame, an MBA from the University of Chicago, and a Licence en Sciences Economiques from the Université Catholique de Louvain, Belgium.

Dr. Richard C. Müller (Board)

Dr. iur. HSG / M.Sc. in Finance (LBS)

Richard currently serves as General Counsel and Chief Compliance Officer at ADAPT Investment Managers, a USD 2B hedge fund focusing on derivative dislocations. Prior to that he advised hedge funds on legal & operations topics. Richard was General Counsel/COO at Blackwall Capital, worked at Stone Milliner Asset Management, was a Partner at 47 Degrees North Capital and employed as a Transaction Manager at Man Investments, specializing in hedge fund seed investments. He started his career as a Consultant at Bain & Co.

Richard holds a PhD in Capital Markets Law from the University of St. Gallen and an MSc in Finance from London Business School.