THE OFFICIAL
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Dorothee Rainis
Two years ago, Dorothee Rainis was marking 15 years as a long-established leader with positions in portfolio management at multibillion-dollar funds in Switzerland. Over her extraordinary career, she had leveraged her skill and expertise as part of a portfolio management team that grew a $2B independent fund to more than $8B—becoming one of the biggest in the Zurich area. In 2021, as associate director in the fixed-income portfolio management team at Brandywine Global Investment Management, she was overseeing well over $50B in institutional assets.
While many successful professionals of her stature might stay the course on this lucrative path, Dorothee left it all behind to start a company with the sole mission to help smaller hedge funds, family offices, and individual investors thrive—Aurelio LLC. In a sterling testament to Dorothee’s passion, ingenuity, and expertise, the firm’s first client was none other than her previous employer, Brandywine Global Investment Management.
Aurelio: A game-changer for independent hedge funds, family offices, and institutional investors.
Based in Princeton, NJ, Aurelio provides top business advisory services to smaller hedge funds, family offices, high-net-worth individuals , independent professional investors, and women-run businesses with a focus on the investment process.
Providing insight often only available to large corporations, Aurelio offers support in developing a process to uncover innovative investment opportunities. They streamline current methods while integrating improvements deduced via compliant research, identification of emerging trends, and advanced quantitative modeling, all while cultivating long-lasting relationships based on open communication, especially crucial in an ever-changing economic environment in which staying up to date can be particularly challenging.
Dorothee and her team seek not to reinvent, but to provide solutions that comprise the creation of bespoke financial and valuation models, the optimization of their clients’ existing models, support in quantitative analysis, the implementation of new approaches in machine learning, as well as effective communication of research and investment results to clients. And they do it all on an ad-hoc basis without the expense of creating new internal positions. By providing a la carte services, which also include developing pitch books and other marketing materials, alpha-producing ESG models, and macro dashboards complete with scenarios and forecasting models to interpret data, clients get exactly what they need, and nothing they don’t. This approach allows smaller firms to compete, all while supporting and elevating clients' own unique ideas.
We had the pleasure to meet with Dorothee, who shared more about the inspiration behind Aurelio and how they’re leveling the playing field and changing the way small firms are investing.
What inspired you to start Aurelio?
I saw so many smaller hedge funds and family offices struggling to produce in-house. Big firms have access to many models and approaches, but smaller firms simply don’t have the budgets. I started Aurelio to help them. To my knowledge, there are very, very few consulting firms offering this level of service on an ad hoc basis. We help them optimize their investment process without needing to find a full-time employee, and provide a suite of tailored solutions to help them thrive.
Aurelio has quickly become known for its unique model, and broad array of services and expertise. Can you tell us a bit more about some of your particular specialties?
We don’t provide investment recommendations. We work alongside investment professionals to home in on the essentials. We’re at the forefront of bridging quantitative financial analyses, so our solutions are quantitatively sound but still intuitive. And we’re not a single niche; we know a whole suite of approaches, so we can work with, and understand, different clients and help them accomplish their goals and improve what they already have in place. My background comes from discretionary macro, so I have to understand why and how things move, from the minute to the broad. Given that I’ve run through all stages, from development to strategy to implementation to explaining it, I know what’s important to every stakeholder, and how to present everything. It’s never a black box.
Quant and AI models are becoming increasingly popular. How do you help smaller firms incorporate these into their more traditional offerings?
Being able to incorporate these tools and models and offer them to their clients is becoming increasingly critical for smaller firms to compete and thrive. Equally critical is their ability to clearly communicate the complexities and values of these new approaches. But many firms still don’t know how to break into these new areas. And if they’ve never worked with quantitative models, it’s very tough to sell them to their clients or even be convinced they work. So we craft models that expand their intuitive understanding of markets while showing how quantitative models generate more money, and help them communicate it to their clients. Our a la carte services also allow them to tackle projects they’ve shelved for budget reasons.
What do you enjoy most about your work?
I love the analytical part because you continue to learn something new. It satisfies my curiosity. But the beauty of financial markets is you have immediate feedback, so you know if you’re right. And, personally, it’s so great to see positive feedback for our clients, especially women-run funds.
Dorothee Rainis
Founder & CEO — Aurelio LLC