Hedge Fund Rising Stars: Jason Karp

Jason Karp, Carlson Capital

Throughout his life Jason Karp has been precocious. Starting at school, Loomis Chaffee in Windsor, Connecticut, he would strive to be the best, and the same was true at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, from which he graduated in 1998 in the top four of his class with a bachelor’s of science in economics. He went on to become a portfolio manager and the youngest partner at multistrategy hedge fund firm George Weiss Associates before being hired by Steven Cohen at revered hedge fund firm SAC Capital Advisors. By the time Karp turned 29, he was director of research and portfolio manager for SAC’s CR Intrinsic Investors group and running a multibillion-dollar portfolio. In 2009 he moved to Dallas-based multistrategy hedge fund firm Carlson Capital to be co-chief investment officer alongside founder Clint Carlson. Working out of New York, Karp, 35, oversees Carlson’s growing operations there and in Connecticut. He is now in the process of leaving Carlson to start his own firm. Karp wants to help others achieve, too. He is the youngest trustee and vice chairman of the investment committee overseeing Loomis Chaffee’s $200 million endowment, and he has endowed scholarships in his parents’ names for a low-income student at both Loomis Chaffee and Wharton.