Giving back is important in the hedge fund community, and Amy Schneidkraut, a managing director of business development and investor relations at $20 billion hedge fund and private equity firm Centerbridge Partners, found her cause early: animals. She and her husband even met at an American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals fundraiser. An international business and management graduate of the University of Wisconsin, Schneidkraut, 33, was born and raised in Rockland County, New York. She worked for Citigroup in prime brokerage and capital introduction before moving to Satellite Asset Management, an $8 billion, New York–based hedge fund spun out from Soros Fund Management in 2008 to handle business development and investor relations. When Satellite closed in the aftermath of the 2008 crisis, one of its partners recommended Schneidkraut to Jeffrey Aronson, co-founder of New York–based Centerbridge. Among her tasks in late 2012 and early 2013: helping to return more than $1.1 billion to investors from the Credit Partners Fund.