Philip Winder, Managing Director
Mr. Winder serves as CEO of Polygon Investment Management, a fund management firm that he founded in 2002. Previously, he led the Middle East team at Schroder Investment Management, where he oversaw in excess of $3 billion of client assets.
Mr. Winder lived in London for 14 years, where he was Head of Global Sales and Marketing for Credit Suisse Asset Management. Previously, he led business development in Europe and the Middle East at Bankers Trust Investment Management. Mr. Winder started his career as an economist in the Foreign Department of the Federal Reserve Bank of NY, focusing on energy, the Middle East and central bank relations. He later worked as an analyst for Brown Brothers Harriman.
Mr. Winder has written and spoken extensively about fund management and asset allocation for various media outlets including: Bloomberg TV, Institutional Investor Magazine, the Middle East Economic Digest, Les Echos, and Pensions World. He is a Senior Advisor to the Albright Stonebridge Group and serves as Vice Chairman of the Board of Trustees, and Chair of the Investment Committee of the American University of Beirut. He is also a member of Renaissance, the Board of Georgetown University’s Center for Contemporary Arab Studies, and the Bretton Woods Committee. He is a founder and former director of Zawya and has acted as a consultant to Kissinger Associates and The Chase Bank.
He earned an M.S. in Foreign Service from Georgetown University and a B.A. from Haverford College. Mr. Winder speaks French and conversational Arabic. He is based in Jackson Hole Wyoming, and Princeton, NJ.
Diane Winder, Director
Diane Winder joined Polygon Investment Management in March 2013, and takes an active role in managing client relationships, with a particular focus on marketing and compliance. Prior to joining Polygon, Diane was a Senior Vice President at Merrill Lynch Wealth Management in Pennington, New Jersey, where she supported marketing and strategic efforts for Merrill Lynch’s U.S.-based ultra high net worth business, the Private Banking and Investment Group. Diane also spent over five years managing international marketing for Merrill Lynch’s Financial Advisors in 40 countries worldwide.
After graduating from U.C. Santa Barbara in 1979, Diane received her M.A. in international relations from Johns Hopkins’ SAIS (School of Advanced International Studies) in 1981. She began her professional career in the Middle East and Africa division at Irving Trust, New York, after which she joined the New York branch of Arab Banking Corporation, where she managed commercial banking relationships in North Africa.
Following a move to London in 1987, Diane worked as a writer and journalist for various publications, including the Economist Intelligence Unit, Euromoney, Institutional Investor, and Investment and Pensions Europe. She subsequently held positions as an investment writer and communications specialist at AXA Investment Managers, London and as an Assistant Director for marketing and communications at Barclays Private Clients, also in London.
Jon Lukomnik, Advisor
As Managing Partner of Sinclair Capital, a strategic alternative asset management consultancy, Lukomnik has advised asset managers on risk management, product development, business strategy and acquisitions. In the aggregate, he has advised asset managers with total assets under management of more than $1 trillion. In addition, he has broad transactional experience, including service on the official creditors committees for WorldCom/MCI, Adelphia and Dana. A pioneer in corporate governance, he has also advised various activist investors for over 20 years.
As Deputy Comptroller for the City of New York from 1994-1998, Mr. Lukomnik served as investment advisor for defined benefit plans with some $80 billion in assets. The City’s pension funds materially outperformed the average large pension fund in America during his tenure. Mr. Lukomnik then served as Managing Director, Head of Strategic Planning and Business Development for CDC Investment Management Corporation, a top ten hedge fund.
He is the co-author of the award-winning book, The New Capitalists: How Citizen Investors Are Reshaping the Corporate Agenda, (Harvard Business School Press, 2006), and has authored numerous articles for both the trade and the academic press.
Mr. Lukomnik currently serves as a Director of Sears Canada and as a trustee for the Van Eck complex of mutual funds and insurance trusts. He is a member of the investment committees for the Forward Association and MHRA as well as Sears Canada. He also serves on the international advisory board for Euronext. He is a former chair of the Council of Institutional Investors and is a co-founder and former Governor of the International Corporate Governance Network.