Speaker > Biography

Richard Okello

Principal
Makena Capital Management

Richard Okello is a Principal at Makena Capital Management, a US$12bln private endowment managing assets for sophisticated global institutional clients including but not limited to endowments, foundations, sovereign wealth funds as well as leading Private Equity, Venture Capital and Hedge Fund General Partners.  At Makena, Richard is responsible for investing the firm’s fixed income allocation as well as for global tactical asset allocation across various asset classes. In addition, Richard is a member of the firm’s investment committee that oversees all investment decisions across all private and public asset classes.

Prior to joining Makena Capital, Richard Okello was a partner at Bridgewater Associates, one of the largest global Hedge Funds.  In his 9 years at Bridgewater, Mr. Okello held various positions.  As a member of both the currency research and emerging markets debt research teams, he worked with the co-chief investment officers to improve upon existing trade ideas, and helped develop new research ideas for inclusion in the firm’s portfolio.  Richard also contributed articles to the firm’s daily research publication-Bridgewater Daily Observations©.  Richard later built and managed the Client Advisory Analytics team which principally undertook research work related to specific investment and portfolio structuring issues for the firm’s clients. Projects included but were not limited to: advising clients on how to manage global currency risks, helping clients building optimal multi-asset class portfolios, advising on managing asset-liability mismatches, and identifying investment managers with true alpha generation talent etc.  Richard then went on to manage a business unit as a Senior Client Advisor. In this role, Mr. Okello was responsible for advising the Chief Investment Officers of the firm’s largest institutional North American clients on investment and portfolio structuring issues covering the full range of the firm’s areas of expertise in fixed income, public equity, currency and commodities, before leaving to join Makena Capital. 

Mr. Okello graduated from Swarthmore College in 1998 with an A.B in economics with Honors and a minor in public policy in 3 years.  He earned an MBA from the Lubin school of business at Pace University in 2003 Cum Laude.  He currently serves on the board of the Human Horizons Foundation, USA.