Bridgewater Promotes Karniol-Tambour to Co-CIO

Updated with correction

Karen Karniol-Tambour

Bridgewater Associates LP, the world’s largest hedge fund, has promoted Karen Karniol-Tambour to be its third co-CIO, the firm announced Thursday.

Karniol-Tambour, who has been with Bridgewater for more than 16 years, was most recently co-CIO of the company’s sustainability division. She joins co-CIOs Greg Jensen and Bob Prince to oversee the investment strategy for the firm’s estimated $150 billion in assets.

In October 2022, Bridgewater founder Ray Dalio announced he was stepping down and named Nir Bar Dea and Mark Bertolini as co-CEOs, with Prince and Jensen as co-CIOs. Bridgewater’s announcement said Karniol-Tambour was unanimously nominated by the firm’s investment committee to become its third co-CIO.

Want the latest institutional investment industry news and insights? Sign up for CIO newsletters. 

Karniol-Tambour joined Bridgewater in 2006 as an investment associate with its fixed-income team and was promoted to head of investment research seven years later to help develop new areas of systemized investment understanding toward its portfolio construction. She was promoted to co-CIO for sustainability in 2021. According to the announcement, she has held leadership roles on the firm’s investment and commercial committees and has mentored younger investors.

“I’ve known Karen since I recruited her to Bridgewater as a college senior,” Jensen said in an email to Bridgewater employees announcing her promotion. “We are lucky to have her leading at the highest level of Bridgewater, and I’m thrilled to have her partnering even more closely with our leadership team going forward.”

As co-CIO, Karniol-Tambour will oversee a system that aims to use Bridgewater’s research to help shape trading strategies; manage the development of proprietary investment management models; and direct the design and implementation of client investment strategies. She will also be expected to publish timely market commentaries to clients and global policy makers via Bridgewater’s Daily Observations, the hedge fund’s flagship research publication.

She will also continue to co-lead the firm’s sustainable investing initiatives, helping oversee the design of new investment solutions with both financial and sustainability objectives, according to the announcement.

Karniol-Tambour, who holds a B.A. from Princeton University, also sits on the boards of the Truman Center for National Policy, Search for Common Ground and Seeds of Peace.