Akiva Katz
Bow Street
Akiva Katz, 34, and his business partner, Howard Shainker, became friends in 2004 at Harvard Business School. There they came up with the idea for Bow Street, named after a street in Cambridge, Massachusetts, near the restaurant where they would meet to talk about their plan. Believing that economic conditions would be setting up a momentous event-­driven climate over the next several years, they wanted to create a hedge fund that would combine a research-­intensive approach with an event-­driven mentality. After graduation Shainker joined activist hedge fund firm Third Point, and Katz, who had received his undergraduate degree in philosophy and economics from York University, hired on with Brahman Capital, the $2 billion-­in-assets New York–based hedge fund headed by Robert Sobel and Mitchell Kuflik. Katz and Shainker continued their friendship, and in 2011 made good on their plans — coming together and launching Bow Street on July 1.