$7.7B fund, after moving from NYC to St. Pete, expands research team

ARK Investment Management, which moved its headquarters from New York City to St. Petersburg last year, has announced plans to significantly grow its research department.

The company, which manages $7.76 billion in assets, promoted ARK Director of Research Brett Winton to the role of chief futurist, according to a statement. The firm also promoted four senior research analysts to director roles and hired five research associates, the release adds.

"According to our research, emerging innovation platforms will transform our lives and the global economy radically, potentially scaling their equity market capitalizations from $7-8 trillion today to more than $200 trillion in 2030," says Cathie Wood, ARK's Founder, CEO and Chief Investment Officer, in a statement. "This reorganization will help us scale the team and develop deeper expertise in various research domains while surfacing convergences between and among technologies that are creating S-curves feeding S-curves. We believe this reorganization will strengthen the lines of communication between our research and portfolio management teams as ARK scales. To that goal, we will be investing in talent, adding five new research associates who will report to our newly appointed directors."

Winton, the release states, will create and develop a unique role in the asset management industry as chief futurist while continuing in his role on the ARK Venture Investment Committee. As chief futurist, he will “focus on the convergence between and among the five innovation platforms and 14 underlying technologies around which ARK has centered its research and investments.”

"Forecasting, dimensioning and anticipating the impact of disruptive innovation will be essential for investors seeking superior investment returns over the long-term," Winton says in the statement. "As they catalyze and reinforce each other, we believe that, collectively, artificial intelligence, robotics, energy storage, genomic sequencing and blockchain technology will rise from less than 10% of the global public equity market capitalization to more than 60% by 2030, representing the largest period of value-creation in history.

On the other promotions, Tasha Keeney was named director of investment analysis and institutional strategies, while Sam Korus, Simon Barnett and Frank Downing were named to directors of research posts. On the ARK team since it was founded in 2014, Keeney will oversee financial modeling across the research teams and manage the strategic opportunities associated with ARK's institutional efforts, the next phase of growth for the firm. Korus, with ARK since 2015, will guide the Autonomous Technology and Robotics team and Barnett, with ARK since 2018, the Life Sciences team. Downing, who joined the firm in 2021, will guide the Next Generation Internet team. The directors of research will report to Cathie Wood.

In addition to those changes noted above, ARK also announced Dan White will be promoted from client portfolio specialist to associate portfolio manager, working alongside Nicholas Grous. Both will assist Wood in managing investment strategies in non-discretionary positions that, over time, could lead to discretionary control, the release states.

"I would like to congratulate each ARK team member for the extraordinary contributions that have led to their promotions," says Wood. "These changes will enable ARK to create a more scalable model with faster information flow, particularly insights that transcend sectors and technologies, ultimately allowing ARK to stay on the right side of change and invest at the pace of innovation."

ARK Investment Management LLC is a federally registered investment adviser and privately held investment firm. In addition to moving Ark to St. Pete in 2021, Wood is helping to build a $15.8 million innovation hub, the ARK Innovation Center, in south St. Petersburg. ARK contributed $2 million to the 45,000-square-foot project.