Hedge Fund Rising Stars: Ingrid Kiefer

Ingrid Kiefer was raised on the West Coast but went East to attend boarding school and then college. Now 40, Kiefer graduated from Yale University with a BA in English but, wanting to work in finance, landed a job as a portfolio analyst at New York–based fixed-­income manager Fischer Francis Trees & Watts. In September 2008, as the credit crisis was erupting, she joined New York–based hedge fund Satellite Asset Management as senior institutional marketer. As Satellite unwound, a victim of the market turmoil, Kiefer found herself talking to Joshua Friedman, co-founder of Los ­Angeles–based Canyon Partners, a $19 billion, credit-­focused powerhouse. Kiefer had never seriously considered relocating back to the West Coast but was impressed by Friedman as well as by Canyon’s reputation, track record, client base and culture. So in October 2009 she joined Canyon as co-head of client management. As investors expect more interaction with managers following the financial crisis, Kiefer’s responsibilities have come to include bringing the notoriously publicity-­shy firm out of its shell, supporting it in presenting a more public face and helping to increase the firm’s visibility well beyond the West Coast.