The key to success: The people developing AI

Ann-Kathrin Behringer is part of Ultramarin’s portfolio management team. She is responsible for all ESG and sustainability topics and applies her extensive expertise to the development and implementation of sustainable investment strategies.

Before joining Ultramarin, Ann-Kathrin worked as a portfolio manager for quantitative strategies at DWS. In her role as lead portfolio manager, she managed both mutual funds and institutional mandates and was the key contact for ESG and climate-related issues. In 2023, her professional expertise was recognized with the "Rising Talent" award by Fondsfrauen. She was also co-author of a scientific article published in an international academic journal.

Ann-Kathrin holds a double degree (M.Sc. in Finance) from Católica Lisbon School of Business & Economics and BI Norwegian Business School. Additionally, she is a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA).

Arthur de Santana is Senior Software Engineer at Ultramarin. He is responsible for developing and maintaining software solutions for portfolio optimization and backtesting.

Arthur brings over a decade of experience in software development. He founded one of the largest platforms for creating online stores in South America, where he gained deep insights into both the technical and operational dimensions of building scalable software products. Later, he served as Head of DevOps at a fast-growing CRM startup, where he designed infrastructure tools and defined processes for efficient software development, deployment, and monitoring.

Arthur holds a diploma in Computer Science and a master’s degree in Nonlinear Optimization from the University of São Paulo (São Paulo, Brazil). His academic work focused on applying shape optimization methods to problems in computational geometry and was published in a leading international journal for applied mathematics.

Beihan Niu is a Quantitative Research Intern at Ultramarin, working within the Equity Selection team. He focuses on development and maintenance of machine learning models.

Before joining Ultramarin, Beihan worked as a Senior Actuarial Associate, focusing on reserve valuation and ALM modeling in international financial reporting standards. He also holds the Fellow of the Society of Actuaries (FSA) designation, specializing in the Quantitative Finance and Investment (QFI) track.

Beihan is currently pursuing a Master of Financial Engineering (MFE) at UC Berkeley. As part of this program, his research projects have included alpha generation using earning call data and sentiment from financial reports and news, as well as feature generation for short interest prediction by establishing an AI agency pipeline with LLM modeling. He also holds a Master's degree in Applied Mathematics from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Cheng Chen is a machine learning engineer in the asset allocation team at Ultramarin. She supports the development and implementation of dynamic allocation strategies.

Before joining Ultramarin, Cheng worked as a research assistant at the Center for European Economic Research (ZEW). She also gained experience in the areas of digital transformation and index product development through various internships, combining analytical precision with an interest in applied financial research.

Cheng holds master's degrees in Business Research (specializing in Finance) and Data Science from the University of Mannheim (Mannheim, Germany).

Chris Jakobiak is a Portfolio Manager at Ultramarin, responsible for the implementation of investment strategies across funds, active ETFs, and managed accounts. He combines a strong quantitative background with practical experience in managing diversified portfolios.

Before joining Ultramarin, Chris worked as a Senior Portfolio Manager at Hypo Vorarlberg Bank AG, where he managed discretionary multi-asset strategies with a focus on delivering risk-adjusted returns through active allocation and tactical adjustments. Prior to that, he was responsible for managing systematic equity strategies at La Française Systematic Asset Management, applying quantitative models to generate alpha in global equity markets.

Chris bridges the gap between investment research and portfolio execution, ensuring that innovative strategies are translated effectively into robust, scalable investment products.

David Dümig is Director, Head of Equity Selection at Ultramarin. He is responsible for the development and implementation of our equity selection strategies, with a particular focus on quantitative methods and modern machine learning approaches.

David has more than 15 years of experience in asset management. Before joining Ultramarin, he managed investment funds and overlay mandates and developed quantitative investment strategies and processes, with a focus on systematic equity selection. He has also conducted academic research on the application of machine learning in investment contexts.

David holds a Master’s degree from the Frankfurt School of Finance and Management. During his academic career, he also studied at King’s College London, the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), and Stanford University (California). Additionally, he completed a banking apprenticeship with the IHK Offenbach and earned a banking specialist qualification at the Frankfurt School. David has received numerous academic honors, including top rankings in his apprenticeship, specialist qualification, and studies, as well as scholarships such as the Deutschlandstipendium and the Frankfurt School Alumni Scholarship.

Andrea Sartori is a Quantitative Investment Researcher at Ultramarin, working within the Asset Allocation team. He is responsible for modelling global markets and developing dynamic allocation strategies.

Before joining Ultramarin, Andrea worked as a Research Fellow at Tel Aviv University within the Analysis group. His academic research focused on harmonic functions and their zero sets. Over the course of his academic career, he authored more than a dozen research papers published in leading international mathematics journals.

Andrea holds a Ph.D. in Mathematics from King’s College London (LSGNT), where he specialised in Quantum Chaos. He also earned a Master’s degree (Part III) from the University of Cambridge. During his undergraduate studies in Mathematics, he graduated as the top student of his class and received multiple academic honours, including the Jelf Medal and the John Terrell Prize.

Andreas Fuest is Director, Head of Asset Allocation at Ultramarin. He is responsible for developing and designing dynamic allocation and capital preservation strategies as well as strategic allocation solutions. Together with his team, he designs models and algorithms to forecast returns, risks, and dependencies across all asset classes.

Before joining Ultramarin, Andreas worked as a Quantitative Portfolio Manager and Senior Quantitative Researcher in the multi-asset division at Deutsche Bank (DWS, Sal. Oppenheim) and within the Harald Quandt Group. His focus was on developing quantitative investment strategies and forecasting models.

Andreas holds a PhD in Statistics from Ludwig Maximilian University Munich (LMU), specializing in risk models for electronic trading systems. He is co-author of several scientific publications at the interface of financial econometrics and statistical learning. He studied Statistics at LMU Munich and Economics at the University of Münster.

Anton Daneyko is a Senior Software Engineer at Ultramarin. He is responsible for designing and maintaining the software and data infrastructure that supports Ultramarin’s investment research and execution.

Anton has nearly 20 years of experience in professional software development, ranging from web-based financial applications to high-performance computing in engineering. His expertise lies in performance optimization (both algorithmic and hardware) and statistical processing of large-scale data. Before joining Ultramarin, he developed an energy trading and risk management platform for a European trading firm.

Anton holds a diploma in Physics from Belarusian State University (Minsk, BY) and earned a PhD in Computational Physics from Philipps University Marburg (Marburg, DE). During his doctoral studies, he developed hydrodynamics simulation software for HPC platforms and used it to produce data for several high-impact scientific publications.

Benjamin Trendelkamp-Schroer is a Senior Machine Learning Engineer in the Equity Selection team at Ultramarin. He contributes significantly to the development and enhancement of our machine learning models and helps design algorithmic approaches for the analysis of financial market data.

Benjamin has extensive experience in developing scientific software and algorithms. He is co-author of the open-source Python frameworks msmtools and pyEMMA, widely used for statistical analysis of protein dynamics. He has also published several research articles on topics such as quantum information and rare event estimation.

Benjamin earned his Ph.D. at the Institute of Mathematics at Freie Universität Berlin and the Berlin Mathematical School. His dissertation focused on statistical methods for rare events in protein dynamics, especially using Markov State Models. Prior to that, he completed a diploma in physics at Technische Universität Dresden, with research interests in quantum information and open quantum systems. During his studies, he was a visiting scholar at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

Daniel Willmann is Co-Founder and CEO of Ultramarin. He is the primary point of contact for our clients and oversees Business Development, Finance, and the company’s strategic growth.

Before founding Ultramarin, Daniel gained extensive experience at various professional services firms in Munich, Frankfurt, and London. He also worked as a research assistant and lecturer at RWTH Aachen University.

Daniel studied Business Administration with a focus on Financial Accounting and Empirical Asset Pricing at WHU – Otto Beisheim School of Management (Vallendar), the Stephen M. Ross School of Business (University of Michigan, Ann Arbor), and the London School of Economics and Political Science. He earned his PhD at RWTH Aachen University and conducted research as a visiting scholar at the Wharton Business School (University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia). For his academic achievements, Daniel was awarded the Anthony Hopwood Prize by the London School of Economics. He has also published several articles on empirical financial market research.

Mathias Eitz is Co-Founder and CTO of Ultramarin. He is responsible for Research & Development and Software Engineering and plays a key role in shaping the company’s technological direction.

Mathias has founded and built several companies in software development and artificial intelligence. He brings over 20 years of professional software development experience and more than 10 years of specialized expertise in machine learning.

He earned his Ph.D. in Computer Science from Technische Universität Berlin (TU Berlin), where he also completed his diploma degree. Additionally, Mathias holds a Master of Engineering from Shanghai Jiao Tong University. He conducted research as a visiting scholar at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Brown University in the USA. His work at the intersection of computer vision and machine learning has been widely cited, and he has served as a reviewer for numerous scientific journals.

Nikolaos Vasilas is a Quantitative Investment Researcher in the Equity Selection team at Ultramarin, where he focuses on signal combination and portfolio construction.

Before joining Ultramarin, Nikolas worked as a Doctoral Associate Researcher at Lancaster University Management School. His research centered on empirical asset pricing, particularly factor-based strategies, portfolio optimization, and factor timing. His findings have been published in leading academic journals such as the Review of Asset Pricing Studies.

Nikolas holds a Ph.D. in Quantitative Finance. He also earned a Master’s degree in Advanced Financial Analysis and a Bachelor’s degree in Finance. For his academic work, he received several awards, including the prestigious CQA Academic Competition Award and the Research Excellence Award from the Centre for Financial Econometrics, Asset Markets, and Macroeconomic Policy. He is currently pursuing his CFA.

Valentin Markounikau is a Staff Software Engineer at Ultramarin. He is responsible for the development of core software infrastructure and analysis tools used to monitor and evaluate the performance of investment strategies.

Valentin brings nearly 20 years of experience in professional software development across the automotive, medical, and financial industries. His expertise lies in designing high-throughput backend systems that are both efficient and maintainable. Prior to Ultramarin, he was responsible for the development of energy trading and risk management functions at a European energy trading company.

Valentin holds a master’s degree in Physics from Belarusian State University (Minsk, BY) and a PhD in Neuroscience from Ruhr University Bochum (Bochum, DE). During his doctoral studies, he conducted research in Computational Neuroscience, focusing on models of visual information processing. His findings were published in a leading peer-reviewed journal.

Vasco Worlitzer is a Machine Learning Engineer in the Equity Selection Team at Ultramarin, developing and implementing ML models that contribute to the data-driven optimization of our investment strategies.

Before joining Ultramarin, Vasco worked as a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Department of Mathematics at Bar-Ilan University (Tel Aviv, IL). His research focused on non-equilibrium statistical mechanics, particularly applications in biological systems. He has published several research articles in renowned international journals, including Science Advances.

Vasco earned his Ph.D. with summa cum laude honors at the Department of Physics at Technische Universität Berlin and the Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt. For his outstanding achievements, he received recognition from the Helmholtz Association. Prior to his doctorate, he completed both his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Mathematics at Technische Universität Berlin, specializing in nonlinear functional analysis and optimization.

Dragan Cvetinovic joined as a Senior Software Engineer, focusing on the data infrastructure of our AI-driven investment platform.

He has over 15 years of experience in software engineering, machine learning, and finance. Before Ultramarin, he contributed to the development of an AI-based ad blocker with over 100 million users and worked on distributed backend systems for a search engine.

Dragan studied Computer Science at the University of Belgrade and holds a Master’s degree in Financial Engineering from Temple University, Philadelphia.

Felix Gremes is Founder's Associate with a focus on Finance & Business Development at Ultramarin. In his role, he supports in all finance-related matters. Felix' work primarily concentrates on key figure-based company steering and fundraising activities.

Before joining Ultramarin, Felix gained valuable work experience in the venture capital sector and in wealth management. He supported investors with their startup investments within a business angel network and also worked at a Single Family Office in Zurich, where he managed existing and new investments in Private Markets. His experience further includes an internship at Plug and Play in Silicon Valley.

Felix studied Business Administration at the University of St. Gallen (HSG), where he earned his Master's degree in Management with a focus on Finance and Entrepreneurship. During his studies, he completed an exchange semester at San Diego State University (SDSU).

Franziska Kirner is Head of Client Relations and responsible for servicing institutional clients at Ultramarin.

Franziska has extensive experience in serving institutional clients. Before joining Ultramarin, she was Head of Institutional Sales Germany & Austria at Bank Vontobel Europe AG. She started her career in the financial industry as a research assistant at Vescore, an investment boutique specializing in quantitative investment strategies, where she later became responsible for investment communications and client services, among other things.

Franziska studied technology and management-oriented business administration at the Technical University of Munich, specializing in capital market theory and innovation management. She also completed a semester abroad at the University of Auckland, New Zealand.

Hannah Kölsch works as a Business Development Assistant at Ultramarin. She supports the team with administrative and organizational tasks and contributes to the efficient execution of projects and processes in day-to-day operations.

Before joining Ultramarin, Hannah gained experience in various legal and scientific professional services organizations. She also worked as an executive assistant at a financial services company, where she was involved in developing new service approaches.

Hannah studied Business Administration with a focus on Healthcare Management.

Hans-Georg Pietruck is part of Ultramarin’s Business Development team and responsible for institutional sales.

He has many years of experience in capital markets and worked for over 10 years at Goldman Sachs in Frankfurt, where he served German and Austrian institutional clients in equity derivatives as an Executive Director.

Hans-Georg holds a B.Sc. and M.Sc. in economics from the University of Münster with a focus on finance. He also studied one semester at Université Paris Dauphine in France.

Ingo Völker is Managing Director of Ultramarin Capital GmbH and Head of Business Operations. He is responsible for the operational business areas and specifically oversees all regulatory matters related to Ultramarin’s investment solutions as well as the management of the regulated securities institution. In this role, he also leads the Legal & Compliance departments.

Ingo brings over 20 years of industry experience. He has held senior positions in building an investment boutique, where he was responsible for the regulatory organizational structures. He has extensive experience working with German (BaFin) and Luxembourg (CSSF) financial supervisory authorities, including serving as a board member of several Luxembourg investment companies (SICAVs).

He studied law at Julius Maximilian University of Würzburg and Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich. In addition, he is a founding member of the Munich Finance Forum e.V.

Jan Bernhart is a Portfolio Manager at Ultramarin, responsible for strategy implementation across mutual funds as well as specialized and advisory mandates.

Jan brings extensive capital markets experience. Before joining Ultramarin, he worked as a Portfolio Manager at Vontobel Asset Management S.A., where he was responsible for implementing quantitative investment strategies across multiple asset classes, including equities, bonds, currencies, and commodities. Previously, he served as a multi-asset trader at Vontobel, overseeing the full lifecycle of the investment vehicles he managed. Jan started his career as a trader at the Stuttgart Stock Exchange, focusing on mutual funds, ETFs, real estate funds, and equities.

He holds a Master’s degree in Finance from the Università degli Studi di Trento and an M.Sc. in Economics from the Technical University of Dresden. Additionally, Jan earned a Bachelor's degree in Economics and Management and passed the trader certification exams at both the Stuttgart and Frankfurt Stock Exchanges.

Julien Florian Jensen is Managing Director and Head of Investment Solutions at Ultramarin. He is responsible for the design and implementation of our AI-driven investment strategies.

Before joining Ultramarin, Julien was co-founder and founding partner of the asset management boutique KJL Capital AG in Frankfurt, which today maintains a product partnership with Ultramarin. His earlier career included roles in investment banking (equity derivatives trading & risk management) and asset management (portfolio management) with assignments in Frankfurt, Zurich, and Hong Kong.

Julien studied economics at WHU – Otto Beisheim School of Management (Vallendar), HEC Genève (Geneva), and NEOMA Business School (Reims & Paris).

Kim Richter is Executive Assistant and a central contact for Ultramarin’s management team. She is responsible for a wide range of organizational and operational topics and contributes her expertise in finance, reporting, and human resources. With her pragmatic hands-on mentality and broad generalist profile, she supports cross-functional collaboration and is a member of the Executive and Leadership Boards.

Kim brings over more than 15 years of experience as an executive assistant in small and medium-sized enterprises across various industries. Her core strengths lie in professional stakeholder communication, efficient design of internal processes, and supporting companies through transformation phases—such as the transition from start-up to scale-up.

She studied International Business Management East Asia at Euro Business College in Hamburg. Afterwards, she completed a Master’s degree in Chinese-European Economics and Business Studies (M.A.) at the Berlin School of Economics and Law.

Mohammad Razavi works as a Senior Software Engineer at Ultramarin, focusing on the design and implementation of software and infrastructure, particularly machine learning backends and investment portfolio management software.

With over 10 years of experience in backend development, software orchestration, and network security, he has a deep understanding of software engineering principles. Prior to Ultramarin, he was part of a team developing network and security monitoring software for national enterprises and maintained security-focused Linux software packages.

Mohammad holds a Master’s degree in Computer Software Engineering from the University of Isfahan.

Natalie-Selina Romann is authorized signatory at Ultramarin Capital GmbH and Senior Legal & Compliance Manager. She is responsible for all regulatory requirements at Ultramarin, including compliance, risk management, and serves as the primary contact for all legal matters.

Before joining Ultramarin, Natalie gained experience in the asset management industry in legal and compliance at Vontobel Asset Management S.A., where she was also appointed as anti-money laundering officer. Prior to that, she worked as a Senior Consultant in financial services at PricewaterhouseCoopers GmbH.

Natalie holds a Bachelor of Laws (LL.B.) in Business Law from the University of Applied Sciences for Business and Environment (HfWU) in Geislingen, and a Master of Laws (LL.M.) with a focus on capital markets law, banking law, and financial services.

Peter Oertmann is shareholder and Chairman of the Advisory Board at Ultramarin. Together with the management team, he shapes the investment processes and shares responsibility for the company’s strategic development and product design.

With over 30 years of capital markets experience, Peter is an entrepreneur, mentor, and advisor driving innovation in the financial industry. He has founded multiple companies and held senior roles—including CEO, CIO, and board member—at regulated asset management firms in Germany, Switzerland, and Luxembourg. Additionally, he has served on investment committees for institutional investors and family offices.

Peter is an honorary professor of Business Administration with a focus on Asset Management at the TUM School of Management, Technical University of Munich. He also serves on the board of INQUIRE Europe and is a member of the Munich Finance Forum and the Swiss Society for Financial Market Research.

He earned his PhD in Finance from the University of St. Gallen (HSG) and holds a Master of Arts in Economics from the Terry College of Business, University of Georgia (USA). He completed his Diplom-Kaufmann degree at the University of Bielefeld. Peter is the author of two books and over 30 academic papers on asset pricing, portfolio management, and quantitative investment strategies.

Ronald Richter is Co-Founder of Ultramarin and works as Principal Machine Learning Engineer. Together with the engineering team, he is responsible for the development and continuous improvement of our machine learning models as well as the underlying software and data infrastructure.

Ronald has over 25 years of professional software development experience. A particular focus of his work lies in the analysis of complex systems as well as the design and implementation of high-performance, well-structured software solutions.

He studied Computer Science at Technische Universität Berlin and graduated with a diploma in Computer Science. Following his studies, Ronald worked for five years as a research associate at TU Berlin, focusing especially on computational geometry and computer vision. He is first author and co-author of several articles published in international journals.

Sebastian Baumgärtner is part of Ultramarin’s Business Development team and responsible for client relations.

He brings four years of experience from AllianceBernstein in London in institutional sales and investor relations focused on German-speaking clients. Prior to that, he worked at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, handling German and French clients in trade finance.

As part of a Joint Degree Program, Sebastian undertook his Master in Global Business studies at Johannes Kepler University Linz and the University of Victoria in Canada. He also has an MBA in International Business from National Sun Yat-Sen University, Kaohsiung (Taiwan).

Yves D’hondt is a Quantitative Investment Researcher at Ultramarin, part of the Equity Selectiont team and active across the full model development and analysis pipeline.

Before joining Ultramarin, Yves gained experience through various projects and internships at the intersection of finance and machine learning. His past roles include textual data mining in private markets at Equation AG, LLM application development with Fabric (acquired by MSCI), and market regime detection with Bank of America. He also served as a Portfolio Manager at PMP Berlin, a student-led investment fund managing €1.2 million in AUM at the time. His main contributions included developing portfolio risk analytics and quantitative trading strategies for equities and commodities.

Yves holds a Master’s in Financial Engineering from UC Berkeley, Haas School of Business, with a focus on equity markets and machine learning. He also earned an M.Sc. in Management from ESMT Berlin, where he graduated first in his class, and a B.Sc. in Informatics from KU Leuven, graduating summa cum laude.