Sachem’s Head, named after a bloody skirmish that took place there in 1637, is a coastal peninsula in Guilford, Connecticut, where Scott Ferguson grew up. In 2012, when Ferguson left William Ackman’s $12.1 billion hedge fund firm, Pershing Square Capital Management, to go out on his own, he honored his hometown by naming his firm Sachem Head Capital Management. He attended Stanford University, where he earned a degree in public policy. Ferguson, now 40, then joined consulting firm McKinsey & Co.’s Washington office and worked in private equity before heading to Harvard University for an MBA. There he met Ackman; after graduating in 2003 he became Pershing Square’s first analyst and partner alongside Ackman. Ferguson’s reputation at Pershing Square has helped him raise approximately $1.4 billion, including an investment from Ackman, for New York–based Sachem Head, which launched with no seed investor. The fund focuses on activist and event-driven investing across market caps.
