About RAFI Indices & Research Affiliates
RAFI Indices, LLC is an index company founded in 2016 by Research Affiliates. It specializes in constructing, publishing, and licensing indices that reflect a deep, academically rigorous understanding of the fundamental factors driving capital market returns. The company is renowned for its innovative approach, offering over 55 live strategies that cater to a diverse range of investment needs worldwide. Importantly, RAFI Indices operates independently and does not offer investment advice or sell any securities, commodities, or derivative instruments.
Research Affiliates is a globally recognized investment advisor. Our firm was founded in 2002 with a mission to challenge conventional wisdom and revolutionize the investment community for the benefit of investors through innovative research and product development.
We provide industry-leading smart beta and enhanced indexing, quantitative active equity, and multi-asset products. Our products are built based on our belief that because market prices are not perfectly efficient, systematic investment strategies provide opportunity for improved investment performance. Partnering with some of the world’s largest investment managers, we deliver mutual funds, ETFs, commingled funds, and separately managed account solutions. As of June 30, 2024, we manage over $147 billion in assets using strategies developed by Research Affiliates.
Investment Professionals
Rob Arnott
Rob Arnott is founder and chairman of the board of Research Affiliates. Rob plays an active role in the firm’s research, portfolio management, product innovation, business strategy, and client-facing activities. He is a member of the Executive Committee of the board. Rob is co-portfolio manager on the PIMCO All Asset and All Asset All Authority funds and the PIMCO RAE™ funds.
Over his career, Rob has endeavored to bridge the worlds of academic theorists and financial markets, challenging conventional wisdom and searching for solutions that add value for investors. He has pioneered several unconventional portfolio strategies that are now widely applied, including tactical asset allocation, global tactical asset allocation, tax-advantaged equity management, and the Fundamental Index™ approach to investing. His success in doing so has resulted in a reputation as one of the world’s most provocative practitioners and respected financial analysts.
In 2002, Rob founded Research Affiliates as a research-intensive asset management firm intent on delivering innovative and impactful products and insights.
Rob has published more than 150 articles in such publications as the Journal of Portfolio Management, Harvard Business Review, and Financial Analysts Journal, for whom he served as editor in chief from 2002 through 2006. Rob has received eight Graham and Dodd Scrolls, which are awarded annually by CFA Institute to the top Financial Analysts Journal articles of the year. He also has received four Bernstein Fabozzi/Jacobs Levy awards from the Journal of Portfolio Management. In 2013, Rob received the William F. Sharpe Indexing Lifetime Achievement Award. He is co-author of The Fundamental Index: A Better Way to Invest (Wiley 2008).
Chris Brightman
Chris Brightman, as CEO, leads the firm by establishing its business strategy and policies to execute on its mission to be a leading source of insights and products transforming the global investment community for the benefit of investors. As CIO, Chris leads the investment teams and supervises research and development activities, provision of index strategies, and management of client portfolios. He is co-portfolio manager on the PIMCO All Asset and All Asset All Authority funds and the PIMCO RAE™ funds. Chris is a member of the board of Research Affiliates.
Chris joined Research Affiliates in 2010 as the director of strategy and head of investment management, became CIO in 2014, and CEO in 2021. Chris has four decades of investment management experience in equities, fixed income, currency, and asset allocation. He has traded securities and derivatives, managed portfolios, supervised quantitative product development, and allocated assets to alternative investment strategies. He also has extensive organizational and people management expertise.
Before joining Research Affiliates in 2010, Chris was the chief executive officer of the University of Virginia Investment Management Company for five years and the chief investment officer of Strategic Investment Group for four years. He has also served as the board chair of The Investment Fund for Foundations (TIFF), director of global equity strategy at UBS Asset Management, senior portfolio manager at Brinson Partners, vice president and head of asset/liability management at Maryland National Bank, and associate national bank examiner at the Comptroller of the Currency.
Chris received a BS in finance from Virginia Tech and an MBA from Loyola University, Maryland. Chris holds the Chartered Financial Analyst® designation and is a member of CFA Institute and CFA Society Orange County.
Que Nguyen
Que Nguyen leads the cross-sectional equity research and strategy design that supports the firm’s systematic active portfolios and smart beta indices. She works in close collaboration with the PIMCO RAE™ portfolio managers and Research Affiliates’ academic advisors. Que is a member of the Management Committee of Research Affiliates.
Prior to joining Research Affiliates, Que was a managing director at Willett Advisors for seven years. Previous to that position, she was a managing director at the University of Chicago Office of Investments. Que has also worked at Numeric Investors, Morgan Stanley, State Street, and Barra.
Que received an AB honors degree from Harvard University in applied mathematics with an emphasis in economics.