As one of the premier hedge fund managers in the country, Jacob Gottlieb has thrived on maintaining a low key lifestyle. At its peak, Visium Asset Management contained $8 billion in capital while Gottlieb was the CIO. Even after a major shakeup in key executives, he remained to shape the future of one of the largest healthcare management funds in America.
Jacob Gottlieb has quite the history. He was the son of immigrants from Poland who settled in America back in the 1960s. Both of of his parents were seasoned professionals in their own right. His dad was an economics professor, while his mom was a proud pediatrician. The combination would spark Gottlieb’s interest in both economics and the healthcare industry from an early age. His educational and professional pursuits have always lined up with these two core industries.
As early as the 7th grade, Gottlieb showed a propensity for investing. In fact, it was that year that he finished first in a contest at school that encouraged students to select stocks. His father began to see the potential that Jacob had, so he started his own traded account and allowed the son to manage it. That was a major success, to the point that Jacob would only pursue the fields of economics and medicine from the day he completed high school. He went to Brown University for his undergraduate studies, where he earned a Bachelor of Arts in Economics. From there he would go to NYU Medical school where he earned a Doctor of Medicine. It is actually the latter career that he would pursue first, even to the point that he would complete an internship in internal medicine at St. Vincent’s Hospital. However, this interest would not last long, as he ended up going to Wall Street to earned the coveted designation of Chartered Financial Analyst.
Gottlieb would use his medical mindset and focus to help him immensely in the investment business. This started back in 1998 when he formed a buy-side analytical company that covered the entire scope of global healthcare. He would leave this position after just a few years to become a portfolio manager for a major healthcare investment division. That would not last long, as others began to see the value of analytical mind. He would move into a position at Balyasny Asset Management where his career really begin to take off. Desiring to manage an even larger fund, Gottlieb would leave this position to start up Visium back in 2005.
It is Gottlieb who is attributed with building the Visium brand into what it was to become by 2016. In that short eleven year time span, Visium became a major player in the healthcare hedge fund industry, reaching $8 billion and 170 employees at one point. Throughout his tenure as CIO, Gottlieb earned a reputation for facilitating the growth of a major hedge fund. The employees that worked for him excelled and became better investors as well, leading to a positive organizational culture overall.
