Samuel Cole was the Chief Operating Officer, Co-Head of Trading, and a Managing Principal at BlueMountain Capital Management LLC, a $4 billion asset manager. In this capacity, Mr. Cole had responsibility for trade execution, operations, funding, valuation, counterparty risk, and capital management. Mr. Cole is a member of the Executive Committee and Board of Directors of the Managed Funds Association, the primary source of information for policymakers and the media on the global alternative investment community. Prior to joining BlueMountain, Mr. Cole was an Associate Principal in the Financial Institutions Group of McKinsey & Co. in New York. At McKinsey, Mr. Cole counseled CEOs and senior managers on a variety of strategic, organizational, and operational issues. Prior to joining McKinsey, Mr. Cole worked as a private equity analyst for Global Partner Ventures in the former Soviet Union, where he focused on the commercialization of Russian defense technologies. Earlier in his career, he was a defense analyst with the Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis. Mr. Cole received his M.B.A. from the MIT Sloan School of Management and a M.A. from the Fletcher School of Law & Diplomacy. He received his B.A. with honors in government from Harvard University.