Kirk Sims heads TRS’ Emerging Manager Program. Since being established in 2005, TRS has committed $5.9 billion to one of the largest programs of its kind. An additional $4.6 billion has been invested directly with EM Program graduates. Each graduate was selected as a result of consistent outperformance among a group of more than 218 EM managers.

Sims joined the Teacher Retirement System of Texas on March 1, 2019. Before joining Texas Teachers, he was a Senior Investment Officer for the Teachers’ Retirement System of the State of Illinois. Sims had oversight and management responsibility of TRS’s Emerging Manager Program, a $750 million evergreen pool of capital designed to identify and invest in emerging investment managers across all asset classes.

Prior, Sims worked at Prudential Retirement where he was responsible for a manager of manager’s retirement platform as well as an open architecture investment platform. He also has a background in asset management and has held various positions with both large and small asset managers.

Sims is a CFA charter holder and holds a Masters in Business Administration from the Columbia University Graduate School of Business. He received a Bachelor of Business Administration from Howard University in Washington, DC.

P. David Bramble has been working in real estate investment for over 20 years. He dedicates his time to sourcing & capitalizing transactions and overseeing project underwriting and execution.  As a corporate and real estate attorney by training, David brings a deep knowledge of all aspects of the real estate cycle. Prior to MCB, David served as the director of commercial lending for a regionally based full-service lending firm –Madison Funding – which he co- founded in 2000. Prior to devoting all his time to commercial real estate investment, David practiced law in the transactions group of Steptoe & Johnson LLP where he provided corporate and real estate advisory services. His practice focused on complex workouts, primarily in the real estate and financial products space. David serves as the Chairman of the Board of Lendistry, a fintech enabled CDFI focused on providing small business capital to underserved communities nationwide. He is serves on the investment committee and board of the Robert W. Deutsch Foundation which invests in innovative people, projects, and ideas that improve the quality of life in Baltimore and beyond. He also serves on the boards of Johns Hopkins Bayview Hospital, Ronald McDonald House, UPENN Institute for Urban Research, and Baltimore Tree Trust. 

David received his J.D. from the University of Pennsylvania, and A.B. from Princeton University.

Agata is CIO and Founder of Chepstow Lane, a European credit opportunities fund launched in 2022 that invests across corporate credit, banks and sovereigns. Agata has been investing in credit for over 20 years, primarily in Europe. Prior to launching Chepstow, Agata built and managed Soros Fund Management’s effort in European credit (2012 to 2020) where she was a partner and portfolio manager at Soros. Prior to Soros, Agata was at BlueMountain Capital and Camulos Capital which was a Soros spin out. She started her career as an analyst at Deutsche Bank before joining Soros in NYC in 2005. She graduated from Middlebury College with a degree in International Politics and Economics and was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship. She completed the General Course at LSE and the Business Bridge Program at Tuck Business School in 2001.

Mr. Lake is the Founder & Managing Partner of Godspeed Capital, a private equity investment firm focused on organic and acquisition growth strategies in the lower middle-market Defense & Government services, solutions, and technology markets. In his two-decade career in private equity, Mr. Lake has been involved with over 50 private equity investments in companies across the Defense Technology, Government Services, Intelligence, and Engineering & Consulting Services markets.

Mr. Lake is the Chairman of SilverEdge Government Solutions, Stengel Hill Architecture, Crimson Phoenix, Infrastructure Consulting & Engineering, Special Aerospace Services, and BNP Associates, and former Chairman of Stratus Team and MOREgroup. Prior to founding Godspeed Capital, Mr. Lake was a Partner for 13 years at DC Capital Partners, having joined the firm as a Partner at the firm’s inception in 2007. During his tenure with DC Capital, Mr. Lake served on the Board of Directors of investments including, but not limited to, Michael Baker International, SC3, National Interest Security Company, QRC Technologies, Owl Cyber Defense, Pond & Company, PBK Architects, Caliburn International, Revenue Solutions, International Development Solutions, The SPECTRUM Group, and BNP Associates.

Prior to that time, Mr. Lake was a member of the Veritas Capital investment team, a middle market private equity firm. Mr. Lake began his professional career working in corporate finance at JPMorgan Securities.

Mr. Lake is a member of the Young Presidents’ Organization and is a Term Member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Mr. Lake holds a B.A. in Economics from Trinity College and an MBA from Columbia Business School.

Dr. Rafaèle Tordjman, MD PhD, has been an investor in life sciences for 20 years.  

She started her career at Sofinnova Partners, a Paris-based venture capital firm, in 2001, as an analyst, and became co-leader and Managing partner with €1.5 billion in assets under management. 

Prior to joining Sofinnova Partners, Dr. Tordjman worked as a physician and researcher in haematooncology. She worked at the Paris University Hospitals as a medical doctor specialising in internal medicine and clinical hematology. She completed her post-doctoral work in immunology at INSERM. 

In 2018, Dr. Tordjman founded Jeito Capital, an independent investment company dedicated to biopharma to invest in the next generation of leaders in medical innovation. Jeito I raised €534 million ($630 million) in September 2021, becoming the largest independent European fund in Life Sciences. 

In September 2020, Dr. Tordjman was awarded Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur, France’s highest distinction. In July 2021, she was appointed by President Emmanuel Macron to promote the French biotech ecosystem among leading international players. Dr. Tordjman has also been nominated in the 2023 Forbes “50 Over 50” selection across Europe, Middle East and Africa, spotlighting successful women who are reaching new heights in their industries. To engage more women in the life sciences industry, in 2010 Dr. Tordjman founded the association 

W.I.T.H. (Women Innovating Together in Healthcare) that now has a global membership of 500 women representing the full chain of medical innovation.

Ms. Even is involved in all aspects of the firm’s real estate practice, including deal sourcing, due diligence, asset management, portfolio construction, and managing client relationships. Prior to joining GCM Grosvenor, Ms. Even was a Portfolio Management Director at Tishman Speyer where she developed and implemented portfolio-wide and asset-specific strategies, managed capital allocation decisions, and served as primary point of contact for institutional investors. Prior to Portfolio Management, she was a member of Tishman Speyer’s Acquisitions team. She started her career in Investment Banking at Evercore focused on Mergers & Acquisitions. Ms. Even received her Bachelor of Science in Finance and Economics magna cum laude from the Stern School of Business at New York University and her Master of Business Administration from Harvard Business School.

Michael serves as the Chief Investment Officer at Mill Creek Capital Advisors, LLC, and the Chairperson of the firm’s Investment Committee. In his role, Michael leads the firm’s Investment Strategy and Communications business units. He is responsible for managing the investment team, overseeing manager due diligence, and asset allocation decisions.

Before joining Mill Creek, Michael was a Managing Director at UBS, where he headed the Investment Strategy team and was responsible for providing asset allocation and market advice to the firm’s clients.

Before joining UBS, he worked in various investment roles at Lehman Brothers and Barclays and as a research fellow at the American Institute for Economic Research. Michael is a frequent commentator and invited speaker in TV and print financial media, including Bloomberg, CNBC, the Wall Street Journal, Reuters, Barron’s, and Business Insider.

He has also served as an adjunct professor of economics and actively publishes his research in peer-reviewed journals, including the Journal of Wealth Management, the Journal of Investing, and the Journal of Index Investing.

Michael received an M.S. in Economics from New York University and a B.S. from the University of Georgia. He is a Chartered Alternative Investment AnalystSM. He currently volunteers as a mentor for veterans and college students.

Lauren Rich is a Managing Director and serves on Wafra's Management Committee. Ms. Rich helps lead Wafra’s strategic partnership investment mandates in both established and next generation asset management businesses. While at Wafra, Ms. Rich has completed several direct minority investments in alternative asset management firms, GP financings, secondary private equity investments as well as investments within closed end funds.

Previously, Ms. Rich was an Associate with Davis Polk & Wardwell in New York, where she advised clients on a broad range of financing transactions.

Ms. Rich earned a BA from the University of Pennsylvania and a JD from New York University School of Law.

Ryan Roderick is the Founder and Managing Partner of Lucashill, a strategic investor in early alternative investments. Mr. Roderick has been working in alternatives for over 25 years and brings a deep knowledge of early and active manager selection as well as value creation across partnerships for LPs and GPs. Mr. Roderick began his career in 1997 and joined Goldman Sachs prior to their public offering and shortly after the firm had acquired the Commodities Corporation. Founded in 1969, Commodities Corporation was a pioneer in alternative investing and known for identifying and backing legendary firms such as Tudor and Caxton.  Over nearly two decades at Goldman Sachs, Roderick served in numerous leadership positions, including as Portfolio Manager of the $10 billion Equity Long-Short fund, Chief Operating Officer of the Hedge Fund Strategies business and was named Managing Director in 2009.  Having led numerous day one investments in funds which would become industry leaders, he launched Goldman’s hedge fund seeding business.  Fascinated by the qualities that lead to right tail performance, Roderick led a multi-year research project on leadership culminating in a quantitative framework for manager selection across asset classes.  Combining his two and a half decades of experience, process and passion, he founded Lucashill in 2022. 

Roderick is a CFA Charterholder and received his B.S. in Finance from the University of Illinois. He currently serves as the Chair of the Board of TurnAround for Children and on the advisory committee of Invest for Kids.

Erik Serrano Berntsen is the Chief Executive Officer of Stable, responsible for defining and executing the firm’s Investment Strategy. Prior to Stable, Erik was a consultant with Bain & Co., where he executed both private equity deal studies and investment opportunity sizing deals as part of the Private Equity Group (PEG), and participated in a broad spectrum of corporate client engagements for clients including banks and Investment Firms. Erik holds a Bachelor of Arts in Politics, Philosophy and Economics from Keble College, University of Oxford and a Master of Business Administration with honors and a Concentration in Finance from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.