Managing Director Ole Andreas Halvorsen - VIKING GLOBAL INVESTORS
For many people, they dream of becoming traders, managers or investors, but their past profession, which they know perfectly, does not allow them to do this.
In fact, completely different people came to the exchange - housewives, plumbers, engineers or military personnel.
The main thing in mastering a new type of activity is not who you were before, but who you strive to become and how much effort you are willing to put into it.
However, on the stock exchange, another strong impetus in your future career is the presence of a good mentor who will happily pass on to you all his practical experience accumulated over the years.
In this article you will get acquainted with the biography of Ole Andreas Halvorsen, who was so lucky in life that the former military man became one of the top hundred hedge fund managers on Walt Street.
He was a very strong guy who loved sports and imagined himself only as a military man, but not as a stock exchange player. To implement his plan to climb the career ladder, he entered the Norwegian Naval Academy, from which he successfully graduated.
It is worth noting that he did not serve long in the ranks of the special forces, but he managed to become the leader of the SEAL team, which in fact is a unit similar to the Navy SEALs in the United States.
Studying as a means to change specialty.
Subsequently, significant changes occurred in the life of Andreas Halvorsen; after visiting the USA, he completely wanted to change his life for the better and began studying at one of the prestigious training colleges.
So the first institution for the former military man was Williams College, where he was taken to strengthen the ski team, for which he later competed in various competitions.
Subsequently, he quite successfully graduated from college, moreover, in 1986 he received a bachelor’s degree in economics with an honors degree, which was incredible for a foreign athlete.
Successful studies at Williams College opened up the opportunity to become a scholarship student, so he seized his luck and entered Stanford University.
There he received his MBA with honors. By the way, for his excellent academic performance he was awarded the Alexander Alexandrovich Robichek Prize in the field of finance.
Career. Mentor
A notable feature of studying at foreign universities is the fact that a diploma is of great value, and is not obtained for the sake of the diploma itself, as is the case in most countries of the post-Soviet space.
With an MBA diploma, Ole Andreas Halvorsen had a number of promising directions open to him, so he could not help but take advantage of them.
So his first job was as a consultant in the investment and banking services department of Morgan Stanley. There they received their first experience, and most importantly, a letter of recommendation.
Halvorsen was very lucky in his career, as he was noticed by the famous trader and manager Julian Robertson, moreover, he ended up on the team of this trader and began to actively manage the Tiger Management investment fund.
Julian was known as one of the most talented managers, as he managed to capitalize the fund from 8 million dollars to 30 billion, not to mention five students who also founded their own companies.
Halvorsen's training and career progressed rapidly under Robertson's guidance, allowing him to hold positions within the fund such as analyst, director of securities and even senior managing director.
However, the most valuable thing he could gain was experience, as well as connections, which he later took advantage of.
In 1999, together with a management team from Tiger, he founded his own company called Viking Global Investors.
The fund makes money on the spread from buying and selling shares of various segments, but the main focus is on IT companies. By the way, in the first year the company's assets grew by more than 89 percent.
Today, Viking Global Investors has approximately $26 billion under management, with Andreas Halvorsen's personal wealth estimated at more than $3 billion.