Francois Gagnon

Francois O. Gagnon is managing director of investments at the Investment Office of the  University of Michigan Endowment. Francois is responsible for directing the quantitative research and development of a unified framework to enhance the investment performance and manage the overall portfolio. He is a contributing member of the senior investment team in reviewing and evaluating investment ideas, trends and strategies across the Endowment portfolio. 

Before joining the Investment Office, Francois was senior managing director at the UAW Retiree Medical Benefits Trust where he was responsible for risk and portfolio strategy. The Trust provided post-retirement medical benefits for more than 800,000 retirees of GM, Ford and Chrysler, with approximately USD55 billion in investment assets. 

Prior to joining the Trust, he was a senior risk manager in the global portfolio construction and risk division at the hedge fund Citadel LLC in Honk Kong where he was responsible for managing all aspects of risk and portfolio optimization for the Asia region.  He subsequently transferred to New York to build and implement a counterparty risk model within the broker-dealer division of Citadel.  

Before joining Citadel, he spent two years as a senior risk manager in the equity division of Lehman Brothers in New York and more than six years at CIBC World Markets in the risk management division and in the equity structured products trading unit. He started his career at the Caisse de Depot and Placements du Quebec, one of the largest pension fund in Canada.

Francois holds a PhD in economics with a specialization in econometrics from the  University of Montreal and has 25 years of experience in the financial industry.