Emmanuel Hatzakis (ehatzaki)

Emmanuel Hatzakis

Teaching Professor and Director of the Masters Program in Finance & the Masters Program in Financial Engineering

School of Business

Education

  • PhD (1993) Wharton, University of Pennsylvania (Operations Research)
  • MS (1992) Wharton, University of Pennsylvania (Decision Sciences)
  • MS (1987) National Technical University of Athens (Mechanical Engineering)

Research

Quantitative equity portfolio management strategies for individuals and institutions
Forecasting modeling for global macroeconomic and investment strategy, and tactical asset allocation.

Management of market and concentration risk in portfolios of equities and options

Development of innovative market-based instruments for sovereign and other public entity funding.

Risk management in commodity supply chains using physical and financial instruments.

Operations in financial services, especially asset management and securities brokerage.

Operational infrastructure and controls in asset management

Funding, capitalization, and treasury liquidity risk management of financial institutions.

Integer and combinatorial optimization methodology and applications
Historical and Monte Carlo simulation applications.

General Information

Risk, structuring, macro strategy & thought leadership and analytics professional with top-tier financial firms, a sovereign government, and a highly ranked university. Built portfolio construction frameworks, quantitative investment strategies, and award-winning risk management models; developed and validated sovereign debt restructuring proposals; and has both buy-side and sell-side experience, including in a fast-paced trading floor environment. Core skills include optimization, simulation, econometric modeling, statistical analysis of huge datasets, and communicating them to intelligent non-experts.

Experience

STEVENS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
March 2019 – present

Director – Finance (MFIN) and Financial Engineering (MFE), School of Business, Hoboken, NJ

Responsible for enrollment, placement, and academic quality of the school’s fastest growing graduate programs. Helped raise the Financial Engineering program’s QuantNet ranking to #19 in 2022 from #24 in 2019.

Revamped the Finance curriculum to be relevant and responsive to current industry needs; designed a new Wealth Management concentration and refocused existing courses toward a new program in FinTech. Continuously reviewing the MFIN and MFE curricula to ensure that they meet industry needs and comply with AACSB accreditation standards. Completed the Assurance of Learning annual process for MFIN. Put together faculty curriculum committees; and planning to involve the Finance Advisory Board for guidance.

Developed and teaching courses in Investment Management (FIN 627) and Derivatives (FIN 628), which emphasize exposure of students to industry portfolio management and options trading practices, alongside theory. Received 4.78/5.00 (Fall 2021) and 4.74/5.00 (Spring 2220) course survey teacher evaluation ratings.

Involved in activities to increase enrollment of qualified students at the MFIN and MFE programs, including hosting webinars, reading applications, calling prospective students and participating in school open houses and other events, as well as reaching out to industry contacts to offer corporate programs at their firms. Increased enrollment by 50% for Fall 2021 after having kept it stable amid the coronavirus crisis.

Creating a placement platform in collaboration with the Corporate Outreach and Professional Advancement office. Already onboarded ~130 US-based campus recruiting teams, and 3 APAC-based ones (target: 200).

Mentoring students for career success and connecting them with industry contacts, having them join corporate affinity groups, and introducing them to hiring managers; helped 78 students in the last year.

Evaluating new study programs to offer; degree in Wealth Management and FinTech are being designed. Performed an analysis of the feasibility of expanding our Financial Planning Certificate program.
Advising MFIN graduate students for their FIN 800 Special Projects in Finance course.

BANK OF AMERICA CORP.
September 2014 – March 2019

Director, Chief Investment Office, Global Wealth and Investment Management, New York, NY

Responsible for delivering investment guidance and portfolio strategies, positioning and implementation advice, thought leadership and due diligence content to the firm’s financial advisors, portfolio managers and clients.

Led the content production and review process of the CIO Weekly Letter on topics of current interest.

Authored several white papers on macro themes and investment trends across all asset classes.

Developed and managed hedging programs and factor-based single stock strategies for client portfolios.

Provided customized solutions for special portfolio needs of Ultra High Net Worth clients.

UBS AG
May 2012 – September 2014

Director, Client Strategy Office, Wealth Management Americas, Weehawken, NJ


Led several initiatives to optimize client experience by leveraging the organization's analytical capabilities.

HELLENIC REPUBLIC
November 2011 – May 2012

Advisor – Finance Ministry, Athens, Greece, and New York, NY


Consulting on mechanisms to align stakeholder interests for sovereign debt restructuring and other matters.

Private Sector Sovereign Debt Restructuring (PSI): Provided research, independent assessments and opinions on incentives aligning the interests of Greece, its creditors, and other stakeholders. Proposed GDP-linked warrants for the bond exchange package that successfully reduced debt by €106 billion.
Post-PSI Activities: Proposed new GDP-linked securities with superior risk/return characteristics for an official sector restructuring, and for the Republic's permanent funding needs. Proposed pro-growth funding policies outlined in Financial Times (in German), The Banker, and The New York Times articles. Assisted with a report for the office of the Greek Prime Minister on opportunities for investors in Greece.

GOLDMAN, SACHS & CO.
2008 – 2011


Vice President – Investment Management Division (IMD), New York, NY


Led quantitative modeling in support of product teams, sales, and infrastructure groups across IMD.

Liquidity Risk Analytics for Unfunded Commitments: Consulted for the firm’s Corporate Treasury on modeling of reserves for a $50 billion portfolio of commitments by borrower sector and creditworthiness.

Trade Confirmations Process Reengineering: Analyzed IMD’s trade confirms to find economically material sources of system bottlenecks to remediate, and “best practice” clusters to adopt system wide.

Fund-of-Funds (FOF) Risk Profile Analysis: Examined FOF risk profiles as PWM client investments.

Portfolio Management Strategies: Developed multi-factor equity model overlays to fundamental equity strategies with significant absolute and relative outperformance in active management and back-tests.
Brokerage Relationship Analytics: Automated the Relationship Asks database across all product groups.

MERRILL LYNCH & CO.
2000 – 2008


Vice President – Global Equities Trading, New York, NY (2007-2008)


Supported sales traders and executives with business analytics in a fast-paced setting on extremely tight real-time deadlines. Developed new methodologies and metrics for client profitability management.

Commission Sharing Agreements (CSA) Analytics: Analyzed profitability impact of CSA on groups of clients. Discovered a contribution margin lift of more than 10% among clients that enrolled in a CSA.

Pro-forma Profitability Assessment: Built and ran models to quickly and accurately assess profitability of pricing, trading volume, and channel mix scenarios of institutional clients that improved negotiating leverage during renewals of 12 annual client contracts valued at more than $70 million in total.

Electronic and Derivatives Trading Propensity Modeling: Built clustering and targeting models that improved accuracy of forecasting and uncovered more than $25 million in annual revenue opportunity.

Vice President – Global Wealth Management, Princeton, NJ (2000-2007)

Conceived and led high-end modeling and analysis that impacted strategic decision making. Built and supported quantitative models to enhance the tactical management of processes in business units.
Revolving Credit Facility Liquidity Risk Simulation: Built a Monte Carlo simulation model that enabled ML Bank to release $4 billion in excess liquidity from its revolving credit line portfolio reserve, and expand the portfolio from 80 to 100 borrowers and from $8 to $13 billion in commitments, resulting in over $40 million in annual pretax income and growth to $20 billion in commitments since 2002. ML Bank USA uses the model monthly for portfolio stress analysis. This work won the Wagner Prize (2004) and the Alexander Hamilton Award (2005).

Mutual Fund Portfolio Optimizer: Designed, tested, and supported use of a Markowitz mean-variance methodology, currently used on a quarterly basis for automatic optimal rebalancing of $7 billion in annuity mutual fund portfolios by the Merrill Lynch Insurance Group.

Money Market Fund Balance Projection Model: Built a model for short (1 year) and long-term (5-10 year) balance projections for $65 billion in brokerage non-maturity deposits based on historical balances, market, macroeconomic and other variables, using statistical regression methods. Model correctly and accurately predicted a significant drop in balances during 2002.

Equity Commission Pricing Analysis: Performed statistical data analysis supporting an increase in ML’s equity commissions, expected to contribute $20+ million annually.

Sterile Reserve Minimization Model: Built simulation models that optimize timing, size and number of cash transfers between MMDA and transaction accounts to minimize client cash kept in these accounts and reduce the reserve required by the Fed. Annual benefit of $7.8 million.
Money Market Deposit Account (MMDA) Tier Pricing Analysis: Statistically estimated increased profitability of $150 million by pricing $70 billion of ML Bank deposits by asset tier.

Money Market Fund Liquidity Risk Analysis: Performed historical, market correlation, and stress event analysis to determine investment term structure of deposits for reviews with regulators Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) and Office of Thrift Supervision (OTS).

Optimal Portfolio Rebalancing Model: Built models to automate periodic and event-triggered rebalancing of retail client portfolios in Merrill Lynch Personal Advisor (MLPA) accounts. Portfolios are optimized with respect to criteria of choice, e.g., tracking error or information ratio, and transactions minimize taxes from realized capital gains or losses/carry forwards.
Financial Advisor (FA) Annuity Prospecting Model: Built a logistic regression model that identifies FAs most likely to increase annuities usage by their clients for the Merrill Lynch Insurance Group.

CDO Liquidity Risk Monte Carlo Simulation: Built simulation to help the Swaps Group of ML’s Institutional Division (GMI) establish liquidity requirement on Collateralized Debt Obligation securities backed by Commercial Paper Backstop Revolving Credit Facilities.

Money Market Fund Rate Model: Developed constrained regression model to set yields.
Financial Advisor Retention and Net New Money Analysis: Classified ML’s Financial Advisors (FAs) with respect to new and lost households and associated assets as well as net new money in 2001. Strategy Group used the results to initiate better FA team formation.

Client Investment Performance: Produced a comprehensive statistical analysis across all ML clients for year 2000. Studied client behavior aspects in connection with performance.

Institutional Service

  • Director of the Master's in Finance Program Chair
  • Director of the Master's in Financial Engineering Program Chair
  • Director of the Master's in Finance Program Chair
  • Director of the Master's in Financial Engineering Program Chair
  • Student Career Placement Platform Architect Member
  • Extended Non-Tenure Track (NTT) Committee Member

Appointments

1. Board Member, Bhargava Capital, Franklin Lakes, NJ (April 2021 - present)

2. Advisor, DeWitt Capital Management, Wayne, PA (March 2021 - present)

Honors and Awards

Alexander Hamilton Award: Technical lead of team that won Gold in Corporate Finance and Cash Management, and helped Merrill Lynch win First Place overall, November 2005.

The Daniel Wagner Prize for Excellence in Operations Research Practice: Technical lead of team that won with the entry: “Liquidity Risk of Revolving Credit Lines at Merrill Lynch”, October 2004.

Franz Edelman Competition: Member of group that won 1st Prize for Merrill Lynch, May 2001. Finalist with Maritrans Shipping, April 1998.

George E. Nicholson Student Paper Competition: Finalist, May 1993.

NATO Fellow: 1991-93.

Greek State Prize for Academic Excellence: 1982-83, 1983-84, 1984-85, and 1986-87.

Professional Societies

  • GARP – Global Association of Risk Professionals Member
  • The CFA Institute – The Chartered Financial Analysts Institute Member
  • GARP – Global Association of Risk Professionals Member
  • GARP – Global Association for Risk Professionals Member
  • The CFA Institute – The Chartered Financial Analysts Institute Member
  • CFA – CFA Institute Member
  • INFORMS – The Institute of Operations Research and the Management Sciences Member
  • INFORMS – The Institute of Operations Research and the Management Sciences Member

Patents and Inventions

Systems and Methods for Incentive-Based Compensation: US Patent and Trademark Office Application Number: 13/873,984. Filed on April 30, 2013. Pending.

Selected Publications

Bank of America Merrill Lynch White Paper

  1. Hatzakis, E. (2022). Understanding Strategies for Managing Concentrated Stock.
  2. Hatzakis, E. (2020). Understanding strategies for managing concentrated stock.

Stevens / CAPCO White Paper

  1. Hatzakis, E.; Xie, J.; Pham, M.; Norris, R.; Kerkel, P.; Sharma, N. (2021). How Wealth Management Firms Can Win in Turbulent Times. New York, NY: CAPCO / A Wipro Company.
    www.capco.com.

Courses

1. Investment Management, Master's Level Finance Course, Stevens (2019 - present)

2. Derivatives, Master's Level Finance Course, Stevens (2019 - present)

3. Wealth Management: Principles and Practices, Stevens (2022 - present)

4. Supply Chain Finance, Master's Level Course, Rutgers (2012 - 2013)

5. Production and Operations Management, Master's Level Course, ALBA (1997 - 1998)

6. Operations Management, Master's Level Course, Wharton (1992 - 1993)