Dmitry Balyasny, managing partner and chief investment officer of Balyasny Asset Management, is Institutional Investor’s 2025 Hedge Fund Lifetime Achievement Award winner.
Balyasny is the 21st recipient of the II award and joins an esteemed group that includes, among others, Cliff Asness, founder of AQR Capital Management, Paul Singer founder of Elliott Management Corp, and David Shaw, founder of D.E. Shaw.
In 2001, Balyasny co-founded the global multistrategy firm, which has grown to $25 billion in assets and 2,000 people across 23 offices globally.
Reflecting the firm’s mission to deliver absolute, uncorrelated returns in all market environments, BAM‘s flagship Atlas Fund has generated an annualized 12.1 percent since inception through April 30, 2025.
As BAM’s CIO, Balyasny continues to be an active risk-taker for the firm, leading the Equities Long/Short business globally and has the distinction of being the only multistrat fund founder among the Big 4 to still manage a book. The investment firm now has teams in five strategies, including Equities Long/Short, Fixed Income & Macro, Commodities, Multi-Asset Arbitrage, and Systematic.
Balyasny has always been proud to talk about his path to hedge funds. He was born in Kyiv, Ukraine and immigrated to the United States with his family when he was seven — after the Soviet Union lifted restrictions on Jewish emigration. His parents, who did not speak English, settled in Chicago. His first job (at the age of 12) was as a door-to-door salesman, an early career bet that he could make more money through the incentive of commissions than working for an hourly wage. As a teenager, he discovered the stock market and became a stockbroker while procuring a degree in finance at Loyola University, in Chicago. In 1994, he joined Schonfeld Securities to start his career in trading.
A passionate fan of Ayn Rand, the libertarian author of Atlas Shrugged, Balyasny founded ATLAS Fellows in 2021, a nonprofit that provides talented, under-resourced young people with opportunities for careers in finance and investing. He is committed to education-focused philanthropic initiatives, including the Ayn Rand Institute.
Balyasny will be honored at II’s Allocators’ Choice Awards on September 18 at the Mandarin Oriental in New York City. Read about the finalists for 2025 CIO of the Year in public pensions, endowments/foundations, and healthcare systems here. And find II’s Hedge Fund Rising Stars for 2025 here.
