Michael J. Scafati, CFA
Managing Partner and Chief Investment Officer
Mike is an experienced institutional portfolio manager, risk manager, and portfolio construction expert, having previously managed nearly $50B of assets across 36 mandates, 330 institutional clients, dozens of SMA platforms, and millions of retail clients for the Putnam Investments International Core Equity team. After joining Putnam in 1993, he held positions on the US Core Growth, Equity Research and Institutional Marketing teams. More recently, Mike managed his own capital in an absolute return futures and options strategy. Early in his career, Mike held positions with Goldman Sachs and A.G. Edwards.
Mike first learned the technique of blending fundamental and quantitative alpha in the US equity space in 1993 under buy-side guru Jack Morgan, and was one of the first adopters of quantitative modeling in the international equity space, including helping design the risk model that Barra would eventually adopt as GEM. In recent years, and as a direct result of his previous institutional portfolio management training in recognizing common factors, Mike explored the relationships he identified among clusters of assets in the absolute return space, and he continues to develop this framework as the point of departure for Signum today.
Mike holds an M.B.A. in Financial Management from the Sloan School of Management at M.I.T. and a B.A. in Finance from Georgetown University.
Crystal McKellar
Managing Partner and Chief Operating Officer
Crystal is responsible for managing the non-investment activities at Signum, including the legal and administrative functions and management of the firm’s investor relationships. Previously she served as a Managing Director at a growth-stage venture capital fund managing over $1 billion in committed capital. Crystal is also the founder and Managing Partner of Anathem Ventures, an early stage venture capital fund.
Earlier in her career, Crystal practiced securities and antitrust law at Davis Polk & Wardwell in New York and Morrison & Foerster in California where she worked with Fortune 500 companies and the world’s largest financial institutions as they navigated times of crisis and opportunity. Crystal has published numerous articles in legal journals and financial publications regarding compliance with securities and antitrust laws and public company merger obligations, and was named one of Global Competition Review’s “100 Women in Antitrust” of 2009. Crystal was also named one of San Diego Metro Magazine’s “40 Under 40” in 2011, honoring high achievers in business and civic affairs. Crystal has also served on the board of directors of several private technology companies, and is a frequent speaker on entrepreneurship and innovation at technology and finance events.
Crystal graduated magna cum laude from Yale University with a B.A. in History, earned a Master’s Degree with Distinction from the University of Oxford, and earned a J.D., cum laude, from Harvard Law School.