Bridgewater’s Melissa Saphier and Gavin Walsh have been selected as 2022 Atlantic Council Millennium Fellows. The Millennium Fellowship is a year-long, high-impact leadership accelerator for rising leaders from around the world and across sectors. Launched in 2015, it builds on the Atlantic Council’s 60-year history of convening global leaders across the private and public sectors to address our world’s most pressing challenges. Fellows complete a curriculum comprised of world-class leadership development resources and have access to the Atlantic Council’s geopolitical expertise, global networks, and international reach.
A core tenet of the program is that tackling important global issues requires harnessing many different perspectives. Melissa and Gavin have each built such unique, critical expertise.
Since joining Bridgewater a decade ago, Melissa has focused on building a world-class understanding of how macroeconomic and market forces are intertwined with policy, social outcomes, and geopolitics. Her research spans topics such as how monetary and fiscal policy affect different income cohorts, the effects of globalization, and the likely inflationary effects of achieving a successful climate transition. As an Associate Portfolio Strategist, Melissa partners with some of the world’s most sophisticated institutional investors to address their biggest challenges, including protecting against inflation and deploying capital to achieve ESG goals.
Since 2008 Gavin has focused on advancing Bridgewater’s systematic approach to investing, primarily in the areas of portfolio management and trading. As a Portfolio Operations Manager, he currently manages the portfolio construction team, responsible for building and implementing all portfolios across the firm. From 2015-2017, Gavin took a hiatus from Bridgewater to serve as the head of finance and technology at GiveDirectly, an international NGO focused on putting charitable donations directly in the hands of those experiencing extreme poverty.
The fellows will join the Millennium Leadership Program’s growing network of over 500 fellows and alumni, spanning 82 countries and a wide range of sectors. Previous fellows from Bridgewater include Erin Miles, Sean Macrae, Steven Kryger and Karen Karniol-Tambour.
Read more: https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/programs/millennium-leadership-program/