The Global Institute of Sustainable Forestry
YALE FOREST FORUM LEADERSHIP SEMINAR
Speaker Biographies -- Spring 2009
Marsh Hall Rotunda, 360 Prospect Street, New Haven, Connecticut
April 23, 2009
Brett Hellerman
Chief Executive Officer and Chief Investment Officer, Wood Creek
Brett D. Hellerman is the founder, Chief Executive Officer and Chief Investment Officer of Wood Creek and is responsible for all activities of the company.
Before beginning his career on Wall Street, Mr. Hellerman was a legislative assistant in the United States Senate where he had responsibility for economic and infrastructure issues for Senator Charles H. Percy of Illinois. Mr. Hellerman is a recognized expert on alternative investments and is a frequent speaker at industry events and conferences where he talks about the future of the alternative investment industry. He has a B.A. with honors in diplomatic history from the University of Pennsylvania.
Prior to founding Wood Creek, Mr. Hellerman was CEO of Norfolk Management Group, an investment bank and asset manager focused on alternative investments which he founded. Norfolk is a dealmaker in the alternative investments industry and has acted as arranger and placement agent for many different alternative investment funds since 1997. Among the asset managers for whom Norfolk designed and launched hedge funds were Bankers Trust Asset Management, Merrill Lynch Asset Management, Deutsche Asset Management, Massachusetts Financial Services, and Babson Capital Management in addition to many independent hedge funds. He also helped seed many de novo fund managers and brought their funds successfully to market, helping these firms grow to hundreds of millions of dollars under management in long-term relationships.
Before Norfolk, in 1991, Mr. Hellerman co-founded Clinton Group, Inc., a hedge fund manager initially focused on mortgage-backed securities. Mr. Hellerman was previously a vice president in mortgage-backed securities at Greenwich Capital Markets where he was instrumental in building Greenwich’s successful effort in mortgage securitization and derivatives. He was also a fixed income professional at First Boston and Morgan Stanley. .
