Ron Pollack: Fund Manager, Family Man, Friend. Ron Pollack: He's Back, More Extraordinary Achievemen

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Ron Pollack: Fund Manager, Family Man, Friend

Were you to pass him on a sidewalk you would never imagine this same man once established among the biggest hedge funds in America, topping out at in excess of a billion dollars. Casually dressed in shorts and t-shirt, Ron Pollack ( http://www.ronpollack.net ) discussed his time managing hedge funds and short selling, as well as his family, charitable organizations he has volunteered with, and finally the reason he determined to return to managing funds following a six-year break. "Short selling is what I do and I need to get back to doing it."

Ron Pollack graduated Magna Cum Laude from Yale and went on to get both an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School and a J.D. from Harvard Law School. After graduate school, Pollack went to Wall Street where he became an investment banker and later honed his skills as a hedge fund manager. Ron was trained as a short seller by industry pioneers, the Feshbach Brothers.

Yale and Harvard are both successful in turning out successful investors. For example, Jim Chanos exposed Enron as a fraud and Ron met him in the 1980s when ...
... they both worked for First Executive Live. Zoe Cruz is a commodity trader and was the vice president of Morgan Stanley, and also a colleague of Ron's at HBS. Jamie Dinan was another successful investor. He is the CEO of JP Morgan Chase and used to play pick-up basketball with Ron when they worked together. Strauss Zelnick was the chairman of ZelnickMedia and Take-Two interactive, as well as Ron's roommate while they attended Harvard. Scott Schoen and Scott Sperling were co-presidents of THL and also friends of Ron's from Harvard. Steve Pagliuca and John Bekenstein, who worked for Bain Capital, were Ron's friends from HBS and Yale, respectively. Glenn Hutchins was also a Harvard classmate. Pollack, who is a graduate of both Yale and Harvard, is a usual example. When he left Feshbach in the early 1990's, he built successful hedge funds. The most famous of those funds was his short fund named Dancing Bear. Near the end of 2001, Pollack felt a burning need to spend more time with family and helping charities.

"After the terrorist attack on 9/11, I was moved by what happened and I really wanted to help," said Pollack. For the months following the attack, the financial markets were in turmoil and Ron began to feel the pull of loyalties between his investment business and the needs of his growing family. In November of that year, Ron was at a family vacation with his expectant wife and three children. Sitting with his laptop on a hotel room watching the markets, he told his wife that he had to go back to the office because the markets were just too crazy.

On the drive back, he started on a plan of action that would allow him to have more time with his family as well as be able to help charity organizations. In 2002, Ron merged his hedge fund business into the Monitor Group, based in Cambridge, MA in order to have more time for his outside activities, in particular, volunteer work and being a dad. He then successfully set up fund-raisers for sick firefighters, police, sanitation workers, etc. of New York working with Vail Valley Foundation, the New York Rescue Workers Detoxification Foundation and others.

As part of his fund-raising activities, he would occasionally end up in the offices of fund managers. This would invariably pull at his heart strings as he had stopped trading after his decision to become a full-time dad and volunteer. In fact, during his time as a volunteer, Pollack only traded once.

{{{At a charity auction in Vail, Pollack had bid for a day of trading and instruction with a local stockbroker, "just for fun." Little did this broker know who had won the bid. Needless to say, he was shocked to find out the depth of knowledge that his visitor had. Within the first 15 minutes, Pollack had completed a successful short sale and knew that he "still had it."|At a charity auction in Vail, Colorado, Pollack, out of humor, was found bidding on a day of trading and instruction from a local stock broker. The broker had no idea who had won the bid. Soon after, he was shocked to find out the vast knowledge and experience his visitor had. Within a short while, Pollack had once again done a successful short sale and knew he was still "the man"|For a bit of personal entertainment, Pollack treated himself to a day of 'personal training' and trading with a local stockbroker, which he won at a charity auction in Vail. It was a major surprise for this stockbroker when he discovered who his trainee was going to be and even more of a surprise when he realized quite how much Ron knew about the markets. It took Pollack just 15 minutes to triumph and a successful short sale trade. He then knew that he had not lost his touch.|While at a charity auction, Pollack jokingly bid on a day