Emerging Leaders Initiative
Educate, Connect and Develop Diverse Investment Professionals
Through ELI, AAAIM is working to invest in our future AAPI leaders and support the collective goal of ensuring full participation of ALL communities in the investment field.
Gordon C.C. Liao, ELI Committee Founder & Chair
ELI exists to help AAPIs break the bamboo ceiling. While AAPIs are largely represented in top educational institutions, and in the junior ranks of many organizations, there is a vast underrepresentation of AAPIs in senior roles throughout corporate America, specifically within the financial and investment industry. While there are organizations that aim to assist all minorities in organizational inclusion, AAPIs are often underrepresented because of the “Model Minority Myth.” Unfortunately, there are few organizations focused on career development and formal leadership workshops for AAPIs throughout the full life cycle of their professional journey. AAAIM is working to create a platform for upward mobility of AAPIs and other underrepresented communities in the investment field.
Support
Support AAPI Professional Growth and Build a Powerful Network of Leaders
Invest
Invest in Underserved Individuals in the Investment Field
Nurture
Nurture Our Community’s Entrepreneurial Spirit through Training and Education
2022-2023 NYC & SoCal Norman Mineta Fellows
Norman Mineta was a beacon of leadership and inspiration for the AAPI community. With the blessing of his family, our ELI Cohort program has been renamed to the Mineta Cohort program. Among many things that Secretary Mineta championed throughout his career, he believed in the imperative of supporting future leaders and the multiplier impact of investing in those who will touch many lives.

Elton Cho
Principal, Ares Management

Willy Guo
Principal, BTG Pactual

April Lee
Principal, Onex Corporation

Hahn Lin
Principal, Sweetwater Private Equity

David Ng
Principal, Avante Capital Partners

Giang Nguyen
Senior Associate, Palladium Equity Partners

Justin Park
Director at KKR

Ed Shim
Business Development & IR, Kirkoswald Asset Management

Anna Song
Vice President, Blue Owl Capital

Ariane Tom
Founder & Managing Director, Kaleida Capital

Matthew Wang
Private Wealth Manager, VP, Merrill Private Wealth Management

Frank Zhang
Co-founder & Managing Partner, ZBS Partners
Thank you to our cohort sponsors!
Please contact info@aaaim.org if you or your organization is interested in sponsoring the Emerging Leaders Initiative
Professional Development Partners

Matt Spielman
2021 NYC Cohort Executive Coach, Founder & Head Coach, Inflection Point Partners

Sandy Li
Executive Coach & Recruiter, Sandy Li Executive Solutions

Dave Liu
CEO, Liucrative Endeavors, Author of “The Way of the Wall Street Warrior”

PJ Kim
Founder and Managing Partner, Lincoln Square Partners

Corbin Wong
Director of Organizational and Leadership Development, Fordham University

Emily He
Investment Associate, Mother Cabrini Health Foundation
Emily (Xiaoyue) He is an Investment Associate at Mother Cabrini Health Foundation, a $3.8 billion private foundation based in NYC focused on providing grants to improve the health and well-being of underprivileged communities in the State of New York. Emily works closely with the Investment Office to manage the investment activities of the Foundation’ endowment, including sourcing, due diligencing and evaluating investment managers across strategies and geographies, developing asset allocation strategies, and conducting thematic market research. Previously, Emily was with The Rockefeller Foundation as part of the investment team responsible for managing a $4.5 billion endowment portfolio. Prior to joining Rockefeller, Emily was a Portfolio Management Associate focused on hedge fund selection and allocation at PAAMCO Prisma. She started her career in equity sales trading at China International Capital Corporation in Hong Kong.
Emily holds an M.B.A in Finance and Strategic Management from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, an M.Phil in Economics from The Chinese University of Hong Kong, and a B.S. from Shanghai Jiao Tong University. She is a CFA Charterholder.

Tiffany Yuan
Senior Associate, Palladium Equity Partners
Tiffany Yuan is currently a Senior Associate with Palladium Equity Partners, a middle market private equity firm with nearly $3 billion in assets under management. She also serves on the Board of Directors of Palladium portfolio companies Del Real, a manufacturer of value-added branded and private label heat-and-serve Mexican cuisine products including value-added meats, prepared specialty items, fresh salsas and side dishes, and Accupac, a provider of outsourced manufacturing and packaging solutions serving the personal care and beauty end markets. Previously, Tiffany was an Investment Banking Analyst at Guggenheim Securities where she worked on numerous buyside and sellside M&A transactions in the Technology, Media and Telecom group. She graduated from Cornell University with a Bachelor of Arts with distinction in Economics.

Chakradhar Singh
Executive Director of Institutional Sales, Equity Derivatives, CIBC Capital Markets
Chakradhar Singh, CFA is an executive director in Equity Derivatives at CIBC(Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce). At CIBC, Chakradhar covers institutional clients, mainly Insurance companies, Asset managers. In the current role, Chakradhar provides clients with solution on capital optimization trades, structured financing opportunities etc. Before joining CIBC, Chakradhar used to work for Apollo Global Management in London as a Risk Manager. At Apollo, Chakradhar used to oversee the market risk on the European banks and insurance companies acquired by Apollo. Prior to joining Apollo, Chakradhar has worked in various large insurance companies e.g Aviva, Athene and FnG heading the hedging efforts for the liabilities. Chakradhar has an undergrad degree from Indian Institute of Technology, India, and MBA from Booth School of Business.

Linda Luu
Vice President, Blackstone
Linda Luu is a Vice President and member of the deal team of Blackstone’s seeding business, the Strategic Alliance Funds within the Hedge Fund Solutions Group. Prior to joining Blackstone in 2018, Ms. Luu was involved in manager evaluation, selection and monitoring across investment strategies at PAAMCO. She began her career in the investment banking department of Credit Suisse. Ms. Luu received a BA in Economics from Columbia University, where she graduated cum laude, and an MBA from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

Angie Chatterjee
Executive Director, Institutional Solutions Sales UBS
Angie Chatterjee is a Director on the Pension, Endowment, Foundation and Asset Manager Solutions team at Bank of America and is focused on delivering systematic solutions to clients. Angie joined Bank of America from UBS where she was responsible for multi-asset systematic strategy distribution to the US Asset Manager channel. Previously, Angie spent 7 years at Barclays on the cross-asset solutions team covering Asset Managers, Pensions, Endowments and Foundations across a wide range of derivative strategies. Angie focused primarily on growing the QIS platform and led sales for Commodity Index solutions. Angie spent the first half of her career in Credit Derivatives in both trading and sales capacities. Angie served as a Portfolio Manager at Black River Asset Manager where she was responsible for a relative value strategy in the Global Credit Fund. Angie began her career trading credit default swaps at Bear Stearns and marketing synthetic CDOs at Wachovia.
Angie holds a BS, magna cum laude, in Economics from Duke University and an MBA from Columbia Business School.

Chloe Choi
Vice President, Private Funds Advisory, Moelis & Company
Chloe Choi is a Vice President at Moelis & Company in the Private Funds Advisory group. Previously, Ms. Choi worked at BlackRock where she focused on Corporate Finance Strategy and at PwC in the Transaction Services group.
Ms. Choi holds a B.S. in Finance and Information Systems from the Stern School of Business at New York University. She is also a Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst (CAIA) charterholder.

Brian Park
Vice President, Bank of America Securities
Brian Park is a Vice President at Bank of America Securities’ equities trading business. Prior to joining Bank of America Securities in 2017, Mr. Park was a trader for equity derivatives and quantitative trading at UBS Securities. Mr. Park received a BS in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology and an MS from Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Mr. Park is an FRM charter holder and a member of the New York FRM Chapter. He is an avid participant of CrossFit Open.

Matt Spielman
2021 NYC Cohort Executive Coach, Founder & Head Coach, Inflection Point Partners
CEO and Head Coach of Inflection Point Partners, Matt Spielman, draws upon decades of senior-executive operating experience at both public and Venture Capital-backed organizations. He now partners with high-performing executives and their teams to realize business and personal success. Matt’s mission is to ignite careers and energize lives.
Matt is an ICF Professional Certified Coach and he graduated from the Executive Coaching program at Columbia University. Matt was named one of the leading coaches by Institutional Investor and appears regularly Good Morning America to discuss his ACHIEVETM goal setting model.
Matt is a former nationally recognized collegiate baseball player. To incorporate fitness, health and well-being into the coaching practice, Matt trained at Duke Integrative Medicine and is a National Board Certified Health & Wellness Coach. Matt graduated from Harvard Business School and received his B.A. in Economics from Columbia University.
Matt lives with his wife and two sons in Westchester, NY.

Sandy Li
Executive Coach & Recruiter, Sandy Li Executive Solutions
Sandy Li (www.sandyliexec.com) began her career as an investment banker for Morgan Stanley in London, Hong Kong, and Houston across Financial Institutions Capital Markets, General Industrials Corporate Finance, and Energy Mergers and Acquisitions. After nearly a decade in executive search, she launched her own executive coaching and recruiting practice in 2014. She recruits and coaches Board and C-Suite level talent across investment management, financial services, global corporations, consulting, venture capital and social impact investing. Over her career she has personally coached over 40,000 executives globally. Sandy Li graduated summa cum laude from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. She has coached faculty at Columbia Business School and Stanford University and has been a guest presenter for Harvard, Stanford, Wharton, Brown, Columbia, Dartmouth, MIT, Northwestern, NYU, UCLA, and USC alumni and students.

Dave Liu
CEO, Liucrative Endeavors, Author of “The Way of the Wall Street Warrior”
Dave is CEO of Liucrative Endeavors. He was co-head of the Digital Media and Internet investment banking group at Jefferies and an entrepreneur who has started multiple companies. He has raised over $15 billion for hundreds of companies, and investor in multiple billion dollar companies. His current portfolio includes companies in technology and entertainment. He supports philanthropic causes for disadvantaged groups and serves as board member or advisor at the University of Pennsylvania, Tau Beta Pi, and Smile Train. He has an MBA from Harvard and dual degrees from The Wharton School and School of Engineering and Applied Science at the University of Pennsylvania. He’s a creator who enjoys writing books and drawing cartoons. He can be reached at www.liucrative.com.

PJ Kim
Founder and Managing Partner, Lincoln Square Partners
Mr. PJ Kim is Founder and Managing Partner at Lincoln Square Partners, focusing on leadership development, talent assessment, organizational due diligence, and performance coaching for PE/VC, hedge funds & C-suite. Counsels and coaches leaders of global business units, portfolio managers, CEOs of portfolio companies across industries, and heads of schools, performing arts, and civic organizations. Formerly Green Peak Partners, Parthenon-EY, McKinsey and numerous social enterprises. Harvard Business School (MBA), Harvard Kennedy School of Government (MPA) and Princeton (AB). Former Princeton trustee, founding board member of the Korean American League for Civic Action, and Council of Urban Professionals board. Married out of his league to superstar wife.

Elton Cho
Principal, Ares Management
Elton Cho is currently a Principal with Ares Management, specifically in its Credit Group, where he focuses on investments in U.S. corporate credit. Prior to joining Ares in 2016, Elton was a Research Associate in the High Yield Group at Fidelity Management & Research Company, where he focused on investments in the Consumer, Retail, and Apparel sectors. Elton holds a B.A., Phi Beta Kappa, from Amherst College in Economics, Environmental Studies and Mathematics, and was an Addison Brown Scholar. Elton got involved in AAAIM in 2019 as a part of the Southern California chapter and now serves on the leadership committee of Ares’ AAPI ERG, “Elevating Asian Voices.” His roots to the community stem from his upbringing in Koreatown, Los Angeles, where he still spends most of his free time. Otherwise, he is an avid enthusiast of bouldering, top-rope climbing, and tennis.

Willy Guo
Principal, BTG Pactual
William Guo is a Senior Vice President in the Opportunistic Credit team at Marathon Asset Management. In this role, he is responsible for public and private investment opportunities across the capital structure. Prior to joining Marathon, Mr. Guo was a Vice President at Medley Management, where he invested across industries through the firm’s direct lending, corporate credit, and tactical opportunity platforms. Mr. Guo was previously an advisory associate at PricewaterhouseCoopers and holds a CPA. Mr. Guo holds an MBA from University of Pennsylvania’s The Wharton School and a BBA with high distinction from Emory University’s Goizueta Business School.

April Lee
Principal, Onex Corporation
April Lee is a Principal at Onex in the Client & Product Solutions group. She focuses on Onex’ fundraising and investor relations efforts across the Onex platforms, with responsibility for the U.S. West Coast and Asia Pacific regions.
Prior to joining Onex, April was the Director of Fundraising & Investor Relations at PennantPark Investment Advisers. Prior to joining PennantPark, she was a Product Specialist covering Global Credit in the Marketing & Investor Relations group at Och-Ziff Capital Management. Prior to, she worked at Bank of America Merrill Lynch in the Leveraged Finance Group.
April holds a B.S. in Business Administration and a B.A. in Economics with Highest Distinction from The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she was elected to Phi Beta Kappa.

Hahn Lin
Principal, Sweetwater Private Equity
Hahn is a Principal at Sweetwater Private Equity where he focuses on investments in high performing technology, consumer, and healthcare businesses. Prior to joining Sweetwater in 2019, Hahn held investment roles at BrightSphere Investment Group and Palladin Consumer Retail Partners. He started his career as an investment banking analyst at Macquarie.
Hahn graduated from NYU Stern with a BS in Finance and is a CFA Charterholder. He is a Boston native and currently lives in San Diego.

David Ng
Principal, Avante Capital Partners
David has over 9 years of middle-market debt and equity experience. Prior to Avante, David worked as a VP in Partners Group’s NYC office, where he was responsible for originating, underwriting, structuring, and managing middle market credit investments across a diverse range of industries. Prior to Partners Group, he held roles in Nomura and KPMG.
David graduated from Indiana University’s Kelley School of Business with a B.S. in Finance and Accounting, and subsequently also earned an MBA at the Kelley School of Business. David lives in New York City and enjoys traveling, scuba diving, and learning new languages.

Justin Park
Director at KKR
Justin is an incoming Director in KKR’s Client and Partner Group (effective October 2022). He will lead product strategy and development for U.S. Private Wealth Partners business, which focuses on distributing KKR’s funds to advisors and clients of private wealth platforms and registered investment advisors. Prior to joining KKR, Justin was a Senior Vice President at Brookfield Asset Management’s strategy and product development team for five years. Previously, Justin worked at J.P. Morgan Asset Management for eight years across strategy, business development and product strategy roles focused on alternative strategies. Justin holds a B.S. in Finance, Management and a minor in Mathematics from New York University Stern School of Business and is a CFA Charterholder. Justin is an Advisory Board member at Rutgers University Innovation Education center, a Board member of Defined Contribution Real Estate Council and is a mentor at Big Brothers Big Sisters of America and College and Career Success Program.

Anna Song
Vice President, Blue Owl Capital
Anna Song joined Blue Owl in 2022 and is a credit analyst on Owl Rock’s Liquid Credit team, focusing on investments in the financials industry. Before joining Blue Owl, Anna was a credit analyst at Sound Point Capital, a credit asset management firm based in New York. Anna began her career at Och-Ziff Capital Management in the Institutional Credit Strategies platform in both New York and London, where she focused on performing leveraged credits and CLO structuring. Anna received a BA, magna cum laude, in International Relations, from the University of Pennsylvania.

Matthew Wang
Private Wealth Manager, VP, Merrill Private Wealth Management
Matthew James Wang is currently a private wealth manager for Merrill Private Wealth Management in New York City. He joined the firm in 2015, previously working with hedge fund and market-maker clients in the prime brokerage line of business. He is especially passionate about using his platform to bring more attention towards the underserved AA/NHPI client segment.
Prior to working in finance, Matt served as an active-duty military intelligence officer. His career includes past assignments with the Defense Language Institute, 10th Mountain Division, U.S. Army North, and a deployment overseas in support of Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan.
Born and raised on Guam, Matt now resides with his wife and twins in Westchester County, NY. He holds a B.S. from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and an M.B.A. from Columbia Business School.

Frank Zhang
Co-founder & Managing Partner, ZBS Partners
Originally from Irvine, California, Frank Zhang is a Co-Founder of ZBS Partners, Alliance Animal Health, Crete Mechanical Group, and Legacy Service Partners. Prior to ZBS, Frank was an associate at Apollo where he diligenced and oversaw investments in gaming & leisure, metals & mining, security, and publishing. Prior to Apollo, Frank worked at Blackstone with companies in the oil & gas, utilities, and chemicals industries.
Frank received an MBA from Harvard Business School as well as a B.S. in Electrical Engineering and a B. S. in Economics (Finance) from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, where he graduated summa cum laude.

Corbin Wong
Director of Organizational and Leadership Development, Fordham University
Corbin Wong is an Industrial/Organizational Psychologist by training who has over 14 years of experience within the field of talent and development. He is currently the Director of Organizational and Leadership Development at Fordham University. During his career he has been fortunate to craft his skills at renowned companies such as eBay, Citigroup, Oliver Wyman, and Deutsche Bank. Prior to joining Fordham, Corbin was a VP at Morgan Stanley who focused on the talent and development initiatives for Morgan Stanley Wealth Management.
Corbin also serves as an Adjunct Faculty member at New York University (NYU) and has been teaching at NYU for the past 10 years. He has also been teaching at Southern New Hampshire University for the past 6 years. He often teaches classes such as Quantitative Models for Decision-Makers, Leadership Theory, Organizational Consulting, Human Resource Analytics, and Research Methods at the undergraduate and graduate levels.
Corbin’s research has been published in the Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, International Journal of Cross Cultural Management, Personality and Individual Differences, and Social Justice Research.
In addition, Corbin is very passionate about giving back and is a Board Member and volunteer with Kings County Tennis League (KCTL), a community nonprofit organization that combines tennis and education to spark the potential of children living in and around Brooklyn public housing. Because of his work with KCTL, Corbin currently serves as an Advisory Staff Member for the Wilson Sporting Goods Company.
Corbin is certified on the Hogan Assessments, DISC Assessment, and Belbin Team Roles Assessment. He received his doctorate from Hofstra University and Bachelors from The Pennsylvania State University.