Dean LeBaron

An alumnus of Harvard University and a Baker Scholar at the Harvard Business School, Dean LeBaron is founder and former chairman of Batterymarch Financial Management, recognized by the industry as one of the most innovative investment management firms. It is now a subsidiary of Legg Mason. Among Dean’s accomplishments, he was one of the inventors of index funds and a pioneer of quantitative investing and computerized trading. In his professional life and in his relationships with clients, colleagues, and competitors, Dean has practiced sharing and sunshine-transparency, openness, and full disclosure-and the vigorous observance of corporate governance policies. If the choice is limited to being best or being first, Dean would say that being first is often best. Demonstrating his philosophy that, in the investment field, you should be where everyone else is not, he was an early, and sometimes first, institutional investor in the emerging markets of Argentina, Brazil, Chile, China, India, Indonesia, and Russia, and was invited by the Gorbachev government to help privatize the Soviet military industrial complex. Dean earned his CFA charter in 1967, and, in 2001, was the seventh recipient of the Association for Investment Management and Research’s highest honor, the Award for Professional Excellence. This award, established by the AIMR in 1991, is “periodically presented to an investment practitioner whose exemplary achievement, excellence of practice and true leadership have inspired and reflected honor upon the profession.”
Sparked 25 years ago by his study of the application of quantum physics and other physical sciences to investment strategy, Dean continues to pursue his interest in complexity as publisher of Complexity Digest [www.comdig.com], exploring the linkage of complex adaptive systems to dynamic social systems, including investments. And through his website [www.deanlebaron.com] and blog [www.leadership.gather.com], he muses and experiments with video commentary, speeches, and provocative financial content. Dean is the author of numerous articles and books, most recently, Mao, Marx & the Market, Treasury of Investment Wisdom, and Book of Investment Quotations.
Living in New England and Switzerland, Dean strives to be the scholar and gentleman envisioned by his parents and teachers.
January 2007