Team
Noel Smith - Managing Partner & Chief Investment Officer
Noel Smith is a Managing Partner and the Chief Investment Officer of Convex Asset Management, as well as the Head of Options Trading at Tanius Technology. Additionally, Noel is the current OCIO of NorCap Investments. As a member of the CME, CBOT, and CBOE, Noel has over 25 years of experience trading volatility, Market-Making, and managing risk. Noel is a frequent public speaker and guest on financial media. He is a collaborator with faculty and students at Columbia University, and he has authored white-papers, additionally speaking at many industry conferences. Previously, Noel was the CIO and Portfolio Manager of two separate Chicago-based proprietary derivatives trading firms. He was the seed investor who financed the launch of GETCO LLC (KCG/Virtu), a global high-frequency trading firm that grew to account for 20%+ of trading volume in the U.S. As a founding member of Third Millennium Trading in 1996, Noel led the firm to become one of the largest U.S. equity options Market-Makers, backing over 65 traders at the CBOE, CME, and CBOT. Noel is an expert in options, stocks, bonds, ETPs, commodities, futures, and volatility. As a quantitative investor and risk manager, Noel is versed in high-frequency trading (HFT), relevant market structure and the underlying technology.
Noel attended the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he received a degree in Biochemistry and performed research at the Beckman Institute in Neuroscience. As a student, Noel was a member of the University of Illinois men’s ice hockey team. Noel is a proud veteran of the U.S. Army, where he was a specialist in microwave and satellite communication systems.
Noel is also a member of the Board of Directors for Imerman Angels, an international cancer charity that has helped over 35,000 people in over 135 countries.
Scott Maidel - Institutional Solutions and Portfolio Manager
Scott Maidel is the Head of Institutional Solutions at Kai Asset Management and a Portfolio Manager for the Kai Convex solutions. Scott was previously a Partner, Portfolio Manager and Head of Hedge Funds Business at QVR, a quantitative derivatives and volatility trading firm offering solutions in hedged equity, multi-strategy absolute return and derivative overlays. He was also previously Senior Portfolio Manager, Equity Derivatives at Russell Investments, where he was lead PM and architect on a 40-act call overwriting mutual fund and similarly for a UCITS Multi Strategy Volatility Fund. Scott was also subject matter expert for the firm in options and volatility, publishing numerous papers and conducting extensive consulting and large-scale overlay implementation for institutional clients. While Scott started his career at PIMCO as a Trade Compliance Analyst, Scott was also previously an Associate Director, Global Trading and Trade Research at First Quadrant and was with Gladius Capital Management as Director of Institutional Solutions. Scott has over 20 years of trading and portfolio management experience with global derivatives.
Scott holds a B.Sc. in Investments and Financial Markets from the University of Southern California, an MBA from Pepperdine University and is a Harvard Business School alumni of the Program for Leadership Development (PLD). Scott is a CFA charter holder and Financial Risk Manager (FRM) certified.