The key to success: The people developing AI

Ann-Kathrin Behringer joined the portfolio management team in January 2024 and is responsible for ESG and sustainability topics.

Before joining Ultramarin, Ann-Kathrin worked as a portfolio manager for quantitative strategies at DWS where she was lead portfolio manager for mutual funds and institutional mandates. She was also the contact person for ESG & climate issues. Ann-Kathrin was involved in a scientific article published in an international journal and received the "Rising Talent" Award of Fondsfrauen in 2023. She is also a CFA (Certified Financial Analyst) and CESGA (Certified ESG Analyst) charterholder.

Ann-Kathrin completed her "Double Degree" Master's degree in Finance with honors at the Católica Lisbon School of Business and Economics in Portugal and at Handelshoyskolen BI in Norway, where she wrote her Master's thesis on quantitative factor strategies. She received a partial scholarship from the Católica Lisbon School of Business and Economics for her studies. She also completed her Bachelor's degree in International Business Administration at the University of Vienna with distinction.

Arthur Santana is a Software Engineer at Ultramarin, where he is responsible for developing and maintaining software related to Portfolio Optimization and Backtesting.

Arthur has over ten years of experience in software development. He founded one of the largest platforms in South America for creating online stores, gaining expertise in both technical and administrative aspects of the business. Later, he served as Head of DevOps for a fast-growing CRM startup, where he designed tools and established processes for software development, deployment, and monitoring.

Arthur holds a diploma in Computer Science and a master’s degree in Nonlinear Optimization from the University of São Paulo (São Paulo, Brazil). During his master’s program, Arthur applied Shape Optimization techniques to problems in Computational Geometry, and his results were published in one of the top journals in the field of Applied Mathematics.

Cheng Chen joined Ultramarin as a Data Scientist in September 2023, to support the development and implementation of dynamic allocation strategies.

Prior to joining Ultramarin, Cheng worked as Research Assistant at Zentrum für Europäische Wirtschaftsforschung (ZEW) and gained professional experience in the area of digital transformation and index product development.

Cheng holds a master’s degree from the University of Mannheim (Mannheim, DE), where she focused on empirical financial research. Her passion for exploring the application of machine learning techniques in guiding investment solutions led her to pursue a second master’s degree in data science to strengthen her tech background.

David Dümig is a Senior Quantitative Investment Researcher at Ultramarin and also responsible for managing the Equity Selection Team.

David has more than 10 years of professional experience in asset management. He has gained extensive experience in the management of investment funds and overlay mandates and in the development of quantitative investment strategies and processes. As part of his professional activities, he has also been scientifically engaged in the application of machine learning for the selection of securities.

David holds a master's degree from the Frankfurt School of Finance and Management (Frankfurt, DE) and also studied at King's College (London, GB), the London School of Economics and Political Science (London, GB) and Stanford University (California, USA) as part of his academic education. In addition, he completed a Bachelor Professional of Banking from the Frankfurt School of Finance and Management (Frankfurt, DE) and a vocational training as Banking Professional at the Chamber of Industry and Commerce (Offenbach, DE). David was honoured for his academic achievements as best in class for the Bachelor Professional of Banking, the Bachelor in Banking and Finance, and the Vocational Training as Banking Professional, and received the Germany Scholarship and the Frankfurt School Alumni Scholarship.

Andrea Sartori is a Quantitative Investment Researcher at Ultramarin, working within the asset allocation team. He is responsible for modelling global markets and the development of dynamic allocation strategies.

Before joining Ultramarin, Andrea worked as a Research Fellow at Tel Aviv University within the Analysis group. His research centred on the study of harmonic functions, particularly their zero sets. Throughout his academic career, Andrea authored more than a dozen research papers published in leading international mathematics journals.

Andrea obtained his Ph.D. in Mathematics from King's College London (LSGNT), focusing on Quantum Chaos in his thesis. Furthermore, he holds a Master's degree (Part III) from Cambridge University. Finally, during his undergraduate studies in Mathematics, Andrea stood out as the top student of his cohort, earning numerous awards, including the Jelf Medal and the John Terrell Prize.

Andreas Fuest is a Senior Quantitative Investment Researcher at Ultramarin and also responsible for managing the asset allocation team. He is in charge for the development and design of dynamic allocation and value protection strategies as well as strategic allocation solutions. To this end, he and his team develop models and algorithms for forecasting returns, risks and dependencies for all asset classes.

Before joining Ultramarin, Andreas worked as a quantitative portfolio manager and senior quantitative researcher in the multi-asset division of Deutsche Bank Group (DWS, Sal. Oppenheim) and the Harald Quandt Group.

During his doctoral studies in statistics at the Ludwig-Maximilians-University of Munich (LMU), Andreas developed innovative models for risk forecasting in electronic trading systems. He is co-author of several publications at the interface between financial econometrics and statistical learning. Previously, he earned degrees in statistics (LMU) and economics (University of Münster).

Anton Daneyko is a Senior Software Engineer at Ultramarin. His area of responsibility is the design and implementation of the software and data infrastructure.

Anton has over 15 years of experience in professional software development with technical expertise spanning from web-applications in finance industry to high-performance computing in engineering. Anton’s specialty is performance optimization (algorithmic and hardware) and statistical processing of large volumes of data. Most recently, Anton was responsible for the development of the energy trading and risk management platform for an energy trading company.

Anton holds a diploma in physics from the Belarusian State University (Minsk, BY) and a doctorate in computational physics from the Philipps Universität Marburg (Marburg, DE). During his doctoral studies Anton implemented hydrodynamics simulation software for supercomputing platforms (HPC) and used it to generate data for his scientific publications. The scientific results were published in a series of papers in high impact factor journals.

Benjamin Trendelkamp-Schroer works as Senior Machine Learning Engineer at Ultramarin. He is jointly responsible for the new and further development of our machine learning models and the design of algorithms for financial market analyses.

Benjamin is co-author of the Python open source frameworks msmtools and pyemma for the statistical analysis of protein dynamics and has published several articles on quantum information and rare event estimation.

He received his PhD from the Institute of Mathematics at the Free University of Berlin (Berlin, DE) and the Berlin Mathematical School (Berlin, DE) on statistical methods for rare events in protein dynamics and Markov State models. Benjamin holds a degree in physics from the Technical University of Dresden (Saxony, DE) where he did research on quantum information and open quantum systems and was a visiting scientist at the University of California Santa Cruz (California, USA).

Daniel Willmann is Co-Founder and Managing Director of Ultramarin and the first point of contact for our clients. In addition to strategic corporate development, he is particularly responsible for product design and fund management.

Daniel gained professional experience in various professional services organizations in Munich, Frankfurt and London and worked as a research assistant and lecturer at the RWTH Aachen University.

Daniel studied economics with a focus on financial accounting and empirical asset pricing at WHU - Otto Beisheim School of Management (Vallendar, DE), the Stephen M. Ross School of Business (University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, US) and the London School of Economics and Political Science (London, UK). He received his doctorate from RWTH Aachen University (Aachen, DE) and was a visiting researcher at Wharton Business School (University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, US). Daniel is a recipient of the Anthony Hopwood Award of the London School of Economics for academic achievement and has published several articles on his empirical financial market research.

Mathias Eitz is Co-Founder and Managing Director of Ultramarin. In addition to strategic corporate development, he is responsible in particular for the areas of Machine Learning Research and Software Engineering.

Mathias has founded and built several companies in the fields of software and artificial intelligence. He has 20 years of experience in professional software development and 10 years of experience in machine learning.

Mathias holds a PhD in Computer Science from the Technische Universität Berlin (TU Berlin), a Diploma in Computer Science from the TU Berlin and a Master of Engineering from Shanghai Jiao Tong University. In addition to his work at the TU Berlin, Mathias has been a guest researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Massachusetts, US) and Brown University (Rhode Island, US). Mathias has published several widely cited research articles on the interface between computer vision and machine learning and has served as a reviewer for numerous scientific journals.

Nikolas Vasilas is a Quantitative Investment Researcher at Ultramarin, specializing in signal combination and portfolio construction methods.

Before joining Ultramarin, Nikolas served as a Doctoral Associate Researcher at Lancaster University Management School. His research focuses on empirical asset pricing, with a particular emphasis on factor-based strategies, portfolio optimization, and factor timing. Nikolas has had his research findings published in reputable journals such as the Review of Asset Pricing Studies.

Nikolas is the recipient of the prestigious CQA Academic Competition Award and has also received the Research Excellence Award from the Centre for Financial Econometrics, Asset Markets, and Macroeconomic Policy for his academic achievements.

Nikolas holds a Ph.D. in Quantitative Finance and is actively working towards his CFA accreditation. He also holds a Master's degree in Advanced Financial Analysis and a Bachelor's degree in Finance.

Valentin Markounikau is a Senior Software Engineer at Ultramarin. He is jointly responsible for the development of the general software infrastructure and in particular for the analysis tools for monitoring strategy performance.

Valentin has over 15 years of experience in professional software development for the automotive and medical industries as well as international financial services companies. Valentin's specialty is high throughput backend applications that are both efficient and easy to maintain. Most recently, Valentin was responsible for the development of the energy trading and risk management functions for an energy trading company.

Valentin holds a master's degree in physics from the Belarusian State University (Minsk, BY) and a doctorate in neuroscience from the Ruhr University Bochum (Bochum, DE). During his doctoral studies, Valentin did research in the field of Computational Neuroscience with a focus on computational models of visual information processing. He has published the results of his research in an internationally recognized scientific journal.

Vasco Worlitzer is a Machine Learning Engineer at Ultramarin responsible for the development and implementation of machine learning models.

Before joining Ultramarin, Vasco was a Post-Doctoral Researcher at the Institute of Mathematics at Bar-Ilan University (Tel Aviv, IL). His research focused on non-equilibrium statistical mechanics with applications in biological systems. Throughout his academic career, Vasco authored several research papers published in leading international journals such as Science Advances.

He received his Ph.D. from the Institute of Physics at Technische Universität Berlin (Berlin, DE) and the Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt (Berlin, DE), graduating Summa Cum Laude and receiving recognition from the Helmholtz-Fonds. Vasco holds a M.Sc. and B.Sc. degree in mathematics from the Technische Universität Berlin, specialising in non-linear functional analysis and optimisation.

Dragan Cvetinovic joined Ultramarin as a Senior Software Engineer in February 2023, to work on the data infrastructure empowering our AI driven investment platform.

Dragan has more than 15 years of experience in Software Engineering, Machine Learning and Finance. Before joining Ultramarin, he was involved in the development and launch of an AI-driven ad blocking product that now has more than 100 million users worldwide. Prior to that, he worked on a search engine, designing and implementing its distributed index storage and backend system. Previously, he was a Quantitative Analyst, developing financial risk models.

Dragan studied Computer Science at the University of Belgrade and holds a master's degree in Financial Engineering from Temple University, Philadelphia, PA.

Francesco Ruscio is a Quantitative Investment Research Intern at Ultramarin and part of the the Equity Selection team. His work focuses on developing machine learning models, scalable research infrastructure, and advanced tools to enhance equity selection strategies.

Before joining Ultramarin, Francesco was deeply involved in research projects centered on quantum computing hardware. He played a key role in the development of quantum computing systems across both public and private sectors, with a specialization in solid-state technologies.

Francesco holds an M.Sc. in Quantum Engineering from ETH Zurich, graduating with distinction, and a Bachelor's degree in Physics Engineering from Politecnico di Milano.

Franklin Liu is a Quantitative Research Intern at Ultramarin, working within the Asset Allocation team. He is supporting the development of quantitative models and improving dynamic allocation strategies.

Before joining Ultramarin, Franklin worked on several research projects in the intersection of the probability theory and finance. His Bachelor’s thesis investigated the modelling of limit order books using generative diffusion models. As part of his studies, he focused on probability theory and was a teaching assistant for probability theory at the Technical University of Berlin (TU Berlin).

Franklin obtained a Bachelor of Science in Mathematics with a Computer Science minor at TU Berlin. During which he received a scholarship for an exchange at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), where he studied Mathematics and Statistics.

Hannah works as a Business Development Assistant at Ultramarin and supports in all administrative and organizational tasks.

Hannah gained professional experience in legal and scientific professional services organizations and worked as an executive assistant at a renowned financial services provider. One focus of her work here was the development and implementation of innovative service concepts. Hannah is a systemic organizational consultant and facilitator with a focus on impact-oriented strategy development and collaborative management formats. She is passionate about helping people and organizations achieve their goals.

Her business studies focused on health management.

Hans-Georg Pietruck works in the Business Development team at Ultramarin.

Hans-Georg has many years of experience in the capital markets. For instance, before joining Ultramarin, he was employed at Goldman Sachs in Frankfurt where he covered German and Austrian institutional clients in the area of equity derivatives for over 10 years.

Hans-Georg holds a B.Sc. and an M.Sc. in Business Administration from the University of Münster with a focus on finance. He also studied at the Université Paris Dauphine in France for one semester.

Ingo Völker is Managing Director of Ultramarin Capital GmbH. He is responsible for the operational business units and all regulatory requirements in connection with our investment solutions and the management of a supervised securities institution. In this capacity, he also heads the Legal & Compliance division.

Ingo has more than 20 years of experience in the asset management industry. He helped to build up an investment boutique in management positions and was responsible for the organizational structures required by regulation. He has many years of experience with both the German and the Luxembourg financial supervisory authorities (BaFin, CSSF) and served as a member of the board of directors of several SICAVs.

Ingo holds a degree in law from the Julius-Maximilians-University, Würzburg, and the Ludwig-Maximilians-University, Munich. In addition to his professional activities, he has been a founding member of the Münchner Finance Forum e.V..

Julien Florian Jensen is Executive Director at Ultramarin and jointly responsible for business development and fund management.

Julien has already co-founded and developed the asset management boutique KJL Capital GmbH, Frankfurt, which has a product partnership with Ultramarin. Prior to this, he gained professional experience in investment banking (equity derivatives trading/risk management) and asset management (portfolio management) in Frankfurt, Zurich and Hong Kong.

Julien studied economics at WHU - Otto Beisheim School of Management (Vallendar, DE), HEC Genève (Geneva, CH) and NEOMA Business School (Reims, Paris, FR).

Kim Richter works as an Executive Assistant at Ultramarin and consults the management team in all organizational matters. As a generalist with a practical hands-on mentality, she provides active support in all cross-sectional areas.

Kim has more than 15 years of professional experience as a management assistant in small and medium-sized companies in various industries and has gained a wide range of experience. She focused on stakeholder communication (internal and external) as well as process implementation and continuous improvement. She is familiar with various structures and processes and used her experience to support management in the transformation of companies from start-up to scale-up.

Kim studied International Business Management in East Asia at the Euro Business College in Hamburg and holds a Master's degree in Chinese European Economics and Business Studies (M.A.) from the Berlin School of Economics and Law.

Max Rapp joined Ultramarin Capital GmbH as Portfolio Manager in August 2023.

Max has more than 8 years of experience in asset management. Before joining Ultramarin, he helped build up the portfolio management and trading of various asset classes at a leading asset management boutique where he was in charge of the technical infrastructure and operational processes. Max was responsible for the introduction of an advisory desk for advisory mandates as well as the implementation of various front office systems. He also has extensive knowledge of regulatory reporting obligations and the Derivatives Ordinance.

Max holds a Master's degree in economics from the University of Basel with a specialization in econometrics. He is a certified derivatives trader (EUREX) and XETRA trader for Deutsche Börse Group.

Mohammad Razavi works as a Senior Software Engineer at Ultramarin where his responsibilities span the design and implementation of software and infrastructure, with a particular concentration on machine learning backend and software for managing investment portfolios.

Over 10 years of experience in back-end development, software orchestration, and network security have provided him with a deep understanding of software engineering principles. Prior to joining Ultramarin, Mohammad was a key member of a team of software engineers who developed network and security monitoring software for national enterprises. He also maintained software packages for security-focused Linux distributions, ensuring that they were up-to-date and effective.

Mohammad received his Master's degree in Computer Software Engineering from the University of Isfahan.

Natalie-Selina Romann is an authorised officer of Ultramarin Capital GmbH and works in the areas of Legal & Compliance and Finance.

Before joining Ultramarin, Natalie gained experience in the asset management industry in the Legal & Compliance department of Vontobel Asset Management S.A., where she was also appointed as Money Laundering Officer. Previously, Natalie worked as a consultant/senior consultant in auditing at PricewaterhouseCoopers GmbH in the Financial Services division.

Natalie holds a Bachelor's degree in Business Law (LL.B.) from the Geislingen University of Applied Sciences (HfWU) and a Master's degree in Business Law (LL.M.) with a focus on capital markets law, banking law and financial services.

Ronald Richter is co-founder of Ultramarin and works as Principal Machine Learning Engineer. He is jointly responsible for the new and further development of our machine learning models as well as the necessary software and data infrastructure.

Ronald can draw on a wealth of experience of over 20 years in professional software development. One focus of his work has always been the analysis of highly complex systems and the design and implementation of clearly structured and at the same time high-performance software systems.

Ronald studied computer science at the Technical University of Berlin (Berlin, DE) and graduated with a degree in computer science. He then worked for five years as a research associate and during this time did research in particular in the fields of Computational Geometry and Computer Vision. He is author and co-author of several articles in international journals.

Sebastian Baumgärtner joined the Business Development team of Ultramarin in December 2022.

He gained four years of experience in institutional sales and client servicing for investors from German-speaking countries during his time at AllianceBernstein in London. Prior to that, he was responsible for German and French clients at Bank of America Merrill Lynch in the trade finance department.

Sebastian studied for his Master in Global Business at the Johannes Kepler University Linz and the University of Victoria in Canada. He also holds an MBA in International Business from the National Sun Yat-Sen University Kaohsiung (Taiwan).

Spyros is a member of the Equity Selection team, where he focuses on the research and development of machine learning models and insights to support stock return predictions and equity selection strategies.

He joined Ultramarin after completing a summer internship that explored the efficacy of the stochastic Variance Gamma (VG) process in capturing the implied volatility of the S&P 500 index. Before this, he gained over five years of experience as an advisor, compliance specialist, and project manager on technical and environmental retrofit projects for commercial ships.

Spyros holds an MSc in Computational and Mathematical Finance from the University of Edinburgh’s School of Mathematics. His thesis centered on equity modeling with the VG stochastic process, investigating how the VG asset pricing formula parameters impact higher moments of returns and the implied volatility surface. His findings contributed to correcting the analytical VG European option pricing formula. Additionally, he holds an MSc in Mechanical Engineering from the National Technical University of Athens, where his thesis on optimizing quadrupedal robot design led to publications in prominent conferences and journals.

Yves D’hondt is a Junior Quantitative Investment Researcher at Ultramarin, active across the full model development and analysis pipeline.

Prior to joining Ultramarin, Yves has been active on different projects and internships in the cross-section between finance and machine learning. His previous experience includes textual data mining in private markets at Equation AG, LLM application development together with Fabric (acquired by MSCI), and market regime detection together with Bank of America. Yves was also a Portfolio Manager at PMP Berlin, a student-led investment fund overseeing €1.2 Million AUM at the time. His main contributions include developing portfolio risk analytics and quantitative trading strategies on equities and commodities.

Yves holds a Master’s in Financial Engineering from UC Berkeley, Haas School of Business, where he specialized in equity markets and machine learning. He also holds an M.Sc. in Management from ESMT Berlin, graduating first out of 138, and a B.Sc. in Informatics from KU Leuven, graduating Summa Cum Laude.