At 35, CIO Jason Mudrick has the smarts, instincts and experience of a seasoned distressed debt veteran. Having started his distressed investing career in late 2001, just as the last bankruptcy cycle was kicking into high gear, Mudrick, a political science major who financed his way through Harvard Law School by teaching economics to undergrads three days a week, got his first job on Wall Street in 2000 as an associate with Merrill Lynch & Co.’s M&A investment banking group. The next year he switched to the buy side, joining distressed and special situation outfit Contrarian Capital Management. He left in October 2008 to launch his own firm, New York–based Mudrick Capital Management, specializing in — what else? — distressed and deep-­value, event-­driven ­investing.

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