Biographies

Rodney Comegys is the global head of Vanguard’s Equity Index Group, which manages the firm’s equity index funds and ETFs. His areas of expertise include index fund management, securities trading, benchmark analysis, risk management, and operations.

As a senior member of Vanguard’s Investment Management Group (IMG), Rodney oversees the investment professionals responsible for more than 200 U.S. and international equity index funds and ETFs. Since joining the IMG team in 2008, he has helped the firm expand its international business; launch new index funds, ETFs, and factor products; and build processes and technology for equity management and trading systems.

Rodney joined Vanguard in 1999. His past roles at Vanguard include head of investments, Asia-Pacific, and head of Equity Index Group, Asia-Pacific. He has directed the Index Analysis and ETF Trading Teams, as well as the Global Broker Relations Team. He managed risk analysis oversight for the Fixed Income and Equity Investment Groups, led Vanguard’s Six Sigma program management efforts, and managed Vanguard’s retail business in Arizona. Most recently, he was global head of risk management for IMG.

Before joining Vanguard, Rodney was a U.S. Navy nuclear submarine officer.

Rodney earned a B.S. in engineering and an M.Sc. in regional science economics, both from the University of Pennsylvania, and an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School.

Sara Devereux is the global head of Vanguard Fixed Income Group and is responsible for all aspects of Vanguard’s in-house fixed income investment management including portfolio and risk management, trading, and research for actively managed taxable and tax-exempt funds, bond index portfolios, money market funds, and stable value trusts.

Sara is the chair of the Senior Investment Committee responsible for Vanguard’s actively managed fixed income portfolio, a member of the firm’s Global Investment Committee, and a member of its Investment Risk Council.   

In her previous role, Sara served as global head of rates, with oversight of all active rates, money market portfolios, and rates-related strategies for Vanguard’s active taxable fixed income fund roster. She also directed foreign exchange and derivatives trading activities.

Before joining Vanguard in 2019, Sara was a partner at Goldman Sachs, where she spent over 20 years in mortgage-backed securities and structured products trading and sales. Earlier in her career, she worked at HSBC in risk management advisory and interest rate derivatives structuring. She started her career as an actuary at AXA Equitable Life Insurance.

Sara holds a B.S. in mathematics from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and an M.B.A. from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

John Ameriks, Ph.D., is global head of Vanguard Quantitative Equity Group, which manages or co-manages Vanguard active equity, alternative, multi-asset-class, and factor-based investment mandates using quantitative methods. 

As a senior member of Vanguard’s Investment Management Group (IMG), John oversees the investment professionals responsible for more than 20 actively managed funds and ETFs. Since joining the IMG team in 2013, he has helped the firm launch new active funds and factor ETFs in markets around the world and led the introduction of enhanced processes and technology for quantitative research and portfolio management. 

Before joining Vanguard in 2003, John was a senior research fellow at the TIAA-CREF Institute. John’s research has appeared in The Journal of Finance, The American Economic Review, The Quarterly Journal of Economics, The Review of Economics and Statistics, and the Journal of Financial Planning, and elsewhere.  His current research interests include quantitative equity investment strategies, behavioral economics, retirement finance, and solutions-oriented single-fund investments.

He earned an A.B. in economics from Stanford University and an M.A., M.Phil., and Ph.D. in economics from Columbia University.

Josh C. Barrickman, CFA, is co-head of fixed income indexing, Americas. He and his team manage bond index funds and ETFs invested in U.S. and international bond markets. His areas of expertise include portfolio management, ETFs, bonds, and indexing.

Josh, who joined Vanguard in 1998, has more than 20 years of fixed income management experience. He has served as portfolio manager of Vanguard’s largest bond fund, the Total Bond Market Index Fund, since 2013.

Josh earned a B.S. from Ohio Northern University and an M.B.A. from Lehigh University. He is a CFA charterholder.

Christopher W. Alwine, CFA, is head of global credit in Vanguard Fixed Income Group, where he leads a global team of 65 investment professionals responsible for the management of Vanguard’s actively managed, credit-sensitive, taxable bond portfolios. Among his areas of expertise are portfolio management, fixed income securities, and credit analysis.

Chris is a member of the senior investment committee at Vanguard responsible for developing macro strategies for the firm’s internally managed active fixed income funds.

Chris joined Vanguard in 1990 and has more than 30 years of investment management experience, spanning both taxable and municipal markets as well as active and index funds. He has served in multiple roles in the Fixed Income Group, including trading, portfolio management, and credit research.

Chris earned a B.B.A. from Temple University and an M.S. in finance from Drexel University. A CFA charterholder, Chris is a member of the Temple University Leadership Council and the Dean’s Council of the university's Fox School of Business.

Warren Pennington is global head of Vanguard’s Office of Investment Management Fintech Strategies, leading a team that explores new technologies to improve Vanguard fund performance, works to enhance the efficiency of the global capital markets, and serves as a catalyst for innovation in Vanguard’s Investment Management Group.

Before joining Vanguard in 2012, Warren worked for the Macquarie Group in various senior leadership roles in its investment management division. Prior to that, he was division controller and ran operations in the consumer lending and corporate trust businesses at Wel

Warren serves on the SIFMA Operations and Technology Steering Committee. He also serves on several advisory boards, including the Ben Franklin Fintech Accelerator Program in Philadelphia, Yale Institute of Sustainable Finance, and Stanford Advanced Financial Technologies Lab.

Warren is a certified public accountant with a B.S. in aerospace engineering and an M.S. in telecommunications from the University of Colorado, Boulder.

Nick Eisinger is the global co-head of Vanguard emerging markets active fixed income, responsible for the firm’s active emerging markets strategy. Among his areas of expertise are portfolio management, emerging-market debt, credit analysis, and currencies. He is also a member of Vanguard’s Global Credit Asset Allocation Committee.

Prior to joining Vanguard in 2013, Nick worked at Fidelity Management and Research, where he was responsible for a range of government bond markets in developed and emerging markets. He was a member of the firm’s global FX research team and part of its international macro research group.

Earlier, he worked at Deutsche Bank in London on the emerging markets trading desk, where he was part of a team that originated and structured asset-backed transactions in the Middle East and emerging Europe regions. Before that, Nick was head of the emerging markets securitization team at Fitch Ratings in London and worked in global sovereign ratings. He has also held positions with Oxford Economic Forecasting and Dun & Bradstreet in global country risk.

Nick earned a bachelor of arts in modern languages from the University of Edinburgh and a master of science in Latin American politics and economics from the University of London. He holds various qualifications in international banking and finance.

Zachary Rayfield, Ph.D., CFA, is head of goals-based investing research in Vanguard’s Investment Strategy Group. He leads the team responsible for creating the research underlying Vanguard’s target-date funds, 529 college savings, and other goal-based investing solutions in the U.S. and abroad.

Before joining Vanguard, Zachary was a group vice president in multi-asset research at T. Rowe Price, where he led a team focused on strategic research for the firm’s target-date and retirement solutions products. In earlier roles, he was a senior quantitative analyst and a senior manager in marketing analytics for T. Rowe Price.

Zachary earned a Ph.D. and an M.S. in operations research from Cornell University and a B.S. in mathematics from the University of Maryland. He is a CFA charterholder. 

Jan-Carl Plagge, Ph.D., is head of ESG research in Vanguard’s Investment Strategy Group, focusing on the implications of the various forms of ESG investing for investor outcomes. Jan-Carl has published in peer-reviewed journals and has presented his work at practitioner and academic conferences.

Jan-Carl has more than 15 years of experience in the financial industry. Prior to joining Vanguard in 2018, he was head of research and co-head of product at STOXX, working in Frankfurt, New York, and London. He also held product development roles with Deutsche Börse AG, where he was responsible for the development of international equity and strategy indexes.

Jan-Carl earned a Ph.D. in finance from the EBS-Universität für Wirtschaft und Recht, Wiesbaden, Germany, and an M.Sc. in business management from the University of Münster, Germany.

Stephen Lawrence, Ph.D., is head of indexing research in the Investment Strategy Group where his research focuses on the future of index investing and the vital role it plays in improving investor outcomes.

His areas of expertise include the performance of active and passive investments, corporate finance, and incorporating insights from financial economics, data science, and machine learning.

Earlier in his Vanguard career, he was head of investment management fintech data science, overseeing data science applications of new structured and unstructured data sources into the investment process.

Before joining Vanguard in 2018, Stephen was head of quantextual research at State Street Bank, where he led a machine learning product team. He also previously led FX and macro flow research for State Street Global Markets.

Stephen earned a B.A. in mathematics from the University of Cambridge and a Ph.D. in finance from Boston College. In 2015, he gave a TED Talk titled “The Future of Reading. It’s Fast.” 

Andrew J. Patterson, CFA, is head of active and alternatives research in Vanguard’s Investment Strategy Group (ISG). He leads Vanguard’s research efforts on active management, alternative investments, and indexing. He and his team provide analytical support for various investment management initiatives and products, including Vanguard’s active management processes and advice platforms. Andrew’s areas of expertise include economics, investments, asset allocation, and investment strategy.

Andrew joined Vanguard in 2002 and served as a client representative associate and an analyst in the Finance Division and the Institutional Investor Group. He joined ISG in 2009 and has held a series of investment strategist and economist positions. He led the economics research team charged with developing and communicating Vanguard’s economic and market outlook before taking on his current role. 

Andrew has co-authored research on a number of topics, including equity and fixed income investing, asset allocation, and global economic trends. He also regularly serves as an ambassador for Vanguard, speaking at client events and industry conferences on a range of topics, and is frequently cited in the financial media.

Andrew earned a B.S. in finance from Pennsylvania State University and an M.B.A. from Villanova University. He is a CFA charterholder.

Douglas M. Grim, CFA, is a senior researcher in Vanguard’s Investment Strategy Group, conducting research and providing thought leadership on environmental, social, and governance (ESG) issues in investing, factor-based investing, public and private active management, and indexing. His areas of expertise include ESG, portfolio construction, alternative investments, and factor investing.

Earlier in his career, Doug served as a senior investment consultant in Vanguard Institutional Advisory Services®. In that position, he provided asset allocation and portfolio construction recommendations, investment policy consulting, and capital markets research to institutional clients. He also served as a team leader, responsible for assisting other consultants with all asset allocation and asset/liability modeling studies developed for clients.

Doug is a member of the advisory board of The Journal of Impact and ESG Investing. He frequently presents at investment forums and has published research in The Journal of Portfolio Management, The Journal of Impact and ESG Investing, The Journal of Beta Investment Strategies (formerly The Journal of Index Investing), and the Journal of Investment Management.

Doug earned a B.S. from the University of North Carolina at Wilmington. He is a CFA charterholder and a member of the CFA Institute and the CFA Society of Philadelphia.

Richard F. Powers is head of private equity product in Vanguard Portfolio Review Department (PRD). His areas of expertise are investment strategies including indexing, active, and factor, as well as investment products including mutual funds, collective investment trusts, and ETFs.

In 2015, Rich became the head of ETF product management, leading a team of experts responsible for conducting surveillance of competitors’ products and positioning, meeting with clients and prospective investors to discuss Vanguard's ETF lineup, publishing noteworthy developments in the ETF marketplace and Vanguard products, improving existing products, developing new products, and supporting ETF education initiatives. In 2020, his team’s responsibilities expanded to include all of Vanguard’s equity and fixed income index products.

Rich joined Vanguard in 1999 and become an investment analyst in PRD in 2003. He was a longtime senior member of the Oversight and Manager Search Team, which is responsible for identifying advisory partners for Vanguard’s actively managed funds lineup and monitoring the firms, people, processes, portfolios, and performance of all existing Vanguard funds on behalf of the firm’s Global Investment Committee and board of directors.

A frequent speaker at industry conferences, Rich is also widely quoted in the media and has made numerous national television appearances on the topic of ETFs.

Rich earned a B.S.B.A. in finance from Shippensburg University and an M.B.A. in investment management from Drexel University.

Jeffrey Johnson, CFA, is head of U.S. fixed income product in Vanguard Portfolio Review Department. His team of fixed income specialists and strategists monitors the ongoing health of the company’s fixed income product lineup and recommends and implements changes to existing products or additions of new products. The team also drives thought leadership about the fixed income product category and serves as an ambassador through client and media engagements.

Previously, Jeff was co-head of U.S. bond indexing in Vanguard Fixed Income Group, overseeing 20 portfolio managers and traders responsible for more than $800 billion in assets across more than 50 mutual funds and exchange-traded funds (ETFs). He was also in Australia for six years, first as head of investment strategy, Asia-Pacific, and later as head of fixed income, Asia-Pacific.

Earlier in his career, Jeff was a senior investment director in the Portfolio Review Department, serving as an investment consultant to Vanguard’s senior management and board of directors. He joined Vanguard in 2000, initially working with high-net-worth individual clients.

Jeff holds a B.A. in finance and economics from the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire and an M.B.A. from Villanova University. He is a CFA charterholder and a member of the CFA Society of Philadelphia. He is a board member of the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire Foundation and serves on its investment committee.

Kelly Hahn is head of retirement research in Vanguard’s Investment Strategy Group. Her focus is on improving people’s retirement outcomes through examining saving and investing behaviors and the surrounding retirement ecosystem. She leads a dedicated research team that studies retirement planning, savings, spending, and access, with the goal of providing solutions and education that enhance people’s chances of achieving retirement success. Her areas of expertise include retirement readiness, defined contribution plans, multi-asset solutions, and investor education.

Kelly joined Vanguard in 2023 from JPMorgan Asset Management, where she led outcomes-driven retirement research that harnessed behavioral insights from massive consumer and defined-contribution administrative datasets. Earlier in her career, she was an investment banker at Goldman Sachs and a consultant at BearingPoint and Arthur Andersen.

Kelly earned an M.B.A. in finance from Columbia Business School and a B.S. in mechanical engineering from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

Ankul Daga is an investment strategist specializing in goals-based investing research in Vanguard’s Investment Strategy Group. He is part of the team responsible for creating the research underlying Vanguard’s target-date funds, 529 college savings, and other goal-based investing solutions in the U.S. and abroad.

Ankul also helps build enterprise research models and meets with clients to provide long-term investment perspectives.

In addition, he covers a range of other research topics, including portfolio construction, multi-asset investing, retirement strategies, passive and active investments, and advisor best practices.

Before joining Vanguard in 2015, Ankul served as wealth manager at Coutts, a large wealth management firm in the U.K. He also has held investment strategist roles with Merrill Lynch and Barclays.

Ankul earned a master’s degree in financial mathematics from Warwick Business School, and he is pursuing an M.B.A. at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He is a CFA® charterholder. He also contributes to the DC Committee of The Investment Association, the U.K. industry trade group, and he is an active member of the Independent Governance Committee for Vanguard’s UK investment pathways. 

Fu Tan, Ph.D., is a senior investment strategist specializing in retirement research in Vanguard’s Investment Strategy Group. She conducts research on health care and longevity risk, life-cycle portfolio choice, retirement wealth accumulation, and retirement readiness and spending. Her areas of expertise include health and aging, household finance, and retirement planning and policy.

Fu’s research generates insights on retirement using public micro datasets, such as The University of Michigan Health and Retirement Study and the Federal Reserve’s Survey of Consumer Finances, as well as Vanguard administrative datasets. She has published papers on health care risk and its implications for portfolio choice in retirement. Her recent paper on machine learning clustering of health care risk was published in The Journal of Financial Data Science.

Before joining Vanguard in 2019, Fu earned her M.S. and Ph.D. in economics from the University of Wisconsin at Madison, an M.A. in economics from Duke University, and a B.A. in finance from Shanghai Jiao Tong University. 

Timothy Smart is a senior investment strategist in Vanguard’s Asia-Pacific Investment Strategy Group and specializes in goals-based investing research. He develops glide-path-based and multiasset strategies to help investors meet their goals. He has a particular focus on the Australian market and its superannuation system, conducting research on retirement decision-making and outcomes.

Timothy has a strong interest in lifetime investment and consumption decision-making, and in the implications of investor preferences and goals for portfolio construction. He is a co-author of the paper The Multi-Goal Framework: Why Practitioners Have Not Adopted the Lifecycle Model—Yet, which was published in The Journal of Retirement.

Timothy joined Vanguard in 2017. He earned a BCom (Hons) in finance and economics with an honors year in finance from the University of Melbourne.

Andy Reed, Ph.D., is head of investor behavior research in the Investment Strategy Group. He leads a global team of behavioral scientists who study how and why investors make decisions, cultivating insights and strategies to promote better choices for millions of investors. His research blends psychology and economics to explore the role of personality and emotion in decision-making, how behavioral biases and risk tolerance shape investor preferences, and the impact of choice architecture on decisions.

Before joining Vanguard, Andy was a vice president in behavioral economics at Fidelity, where he established a behavioral economics practice. At Fidelity he co-authored white papers on financial wellness and total well-being, conducted large-scale experiments to improve investor outcomes, and presented research insights to investors, financial advisors, and retirement plan sponsors.

Previously, he was an associate research scientist at Columbia University and a postdoctoral scholar at Stanford University. Andy earned a B.A. in history and psychology from Swarthmore College and an M.A. and a Ph.D. in developmental psychology from Cornell University.

Anna Madamba, Ph.D., is a senior researcher specializing in investor preferences, in Vanguard’s Investment Strategy Group. She is responsible for producing research on the underlying factors and motivations that influence investor decision-making as it relates to portfolio construction and wealth planning. Among her areas of expertise are investor sentiment and decision-making, financial advice, and retirement issues.

Anna joined Vanguard in 2005 and has held research positions in the firm’s Client Insights Group and Center for Investor Research. Prior to joining Vanguard, she was a customer research manager at TIAA-CREF.

Anna earned a B.A. in sociology from the University of the Philippines at Los Banos and an M.A. and Ph.D. in sociology and demography from Pennsylvania State University. She was a postdoctoral fellow at the Carolina Population Center.

Thomas J. De Luca is a senior researcher, investor behavior, in Vanguard’s Investment Strategy Group, responsible for conducting research on investor preferences and decision-making and applying behavioral insights to real-world settings. His areas of expertise include financial modeling, data analysis, and investor behavior.

Tom’s research examines the behavior of self-directed individual investors, including retirement withdrawal trends, ESG (environmental, social, and governance) fund usage, and investor reactions to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Prior to joining Vanguard in 2014, Tom served as a captain and meteorologist in the U.S. Air Force. 

Tom holds a B.A. in mathematics from Cornell University, M.S. degrees in applied mathematics and meteorology from the Naval Postgraduate School, an M.B.A. with distinction from the Kellogg School of Management, and an M.P.S. in data analytics from Pennsylvania State University.

Paulo Costa, Ph.D., is a senior behavioral economist in the Investment Strategy Group, where his research interests include behavioral finance, financial planning, and the value of financial advice.

Paulo’s current research examines the value clients get from human and robo advisors, the value of personalized financial advice, and the steps investors should consider to achieve financial wellness. His recent work also includes study of the safe withdrawal rate for FIRE (Financial Independence Retire Early) investors. In addition to conducting research, Paulo frequently meets with clients to present Vanguard’s thought leadership on investor behavior and financial advice.

Prior to joining Vanguard, his research focused on quantitative equity strategies and how the framing of financial information affects investor behavior.

Paulo holds a B.A. in economics from Yale University and an M.A. and a Ph.D. in economics from Harvard University.

Garrett Harbron, J.D., CFA, CFP®, became Vanguard’s head of global wealth planning methodology in 2023. He leads a team that conducts research and analysis on a wide range of retirement and wealth planning topics for Vanguard’s advice offers globally. He previously was head of European wealth planning research.

Garrett’s areas of expertise include employer defined benefit and defined contribution pension plans, retirement planning, portfolio tax optimization, estate planning, asset allocation, passive and active strategies, and alternative investments. He also serves on Vanguard’s Advice Policy Council and Vanguard Europe’s Advice Investment Policy Council.

Garrett joined Vanguard in 2011 and also has served in the Investment Strategy Group as a member of a research team focusing on retirement planning, indexing, ETFs, and advice. Prior to his Vanguard career, Garrett worked for Merrill Lynch as a financial advisor, at Oppenheimer Funds as a retirement plan consultant, and at Wells Fargo Advisors as a compliance consultant. He also practiced law in the United States for five years.

Garrett earned a B.A. in economics from Indiana University and an M.B.A. and J.D. from the University of Cincinnati. He holds the Chartered Financial Analyst® and Certified Financial Planner™ certifications. 

Stephen M. Weber, CFP®, is a senior researcher in Vanguard’s U.S. Wealth Planning Research Group, which is responsible for overseeing the investment philosophy, methodology, and wealth management strategies supporting Vanguard's advisory products and services. His areas of expertise include financial planning, health care planning, portfolio construction, and retirement.

Stephen joined Vanguard in 1992 and has more than 25 years of experience in the financial services industry.

He earned an M.B.A. and M.S.I.S. from Pennsylvania State University and has held the CFP® certification for more than 20 years.

Anatoly Shtekhman, CFA, is head of global advised portfolio construction for Vanguard’s enterprise advice methodology team. In his role, Anatoly leads the team responsible for creating the methodology that powers Vanguard’s portfolio construction advice.

Previously, he was a senior portfolio manager in Vanguard Quantitative Equity Group, where he conducted research on portfolio construction and managed global macro and quantitative funds.

Anatoly joined Vanguard in 2007 as a senior investment strategist in the Investment Strategy Group, leading the quantitative analyst team that oversees the Vanguard Capital Markets Model, conducting and publishing research on portfolio design and alternative asset classes, and presenting investment topics in public forums. Before joining Vanguard, Anatoly was a risk manager at John Hancock Financial Services.

Anatoly earned B.S. in mathematics from the University of Scranton, an M.S. in finance from Boston College, and an M.B.A. from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He is a member of the CFA Institute and the CFA Society of Philadelphia.

Megan Finlay is a senior investment strategist in Vanguard’s Portfolio Construction Research Group, specializing in topics in asset allocation and portfolio optimization. She is part of the team responsible for overseeing Vanguard’s portfolio construction advice. She also serves on Vanguard Europe’s Advice Investment Policy Council.

Previously, she was a vice president at Morgan Stanley Investment Management, where she focused on equities trading as part of a portfolio management team.

Megan earned a B.S. in management from the Georgia Institute of Technology and an M.B.A. from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.

Boris Wong, Ph.D., WMCP, is the senior manager of Vanguard’s Wealth Planning Research Group. He leads a team that conducts research and analysis on a wide range of financial planning and wealth management topics for Vanguard’s advisory products and services.

Boris and his team oversee the Vanguard Financial Advice Model, a proprietary model that can evaluate multiple financial strategies simultaneously to make optimal financial planning decisions. He has published research on wealth planning topics that include Roth conversion, Social Security, and health savings accounts.

Boris earned a B.S. in mathematics and a B.A. in quantitative economics from the University of California, Irvine, and a Ph.D. in economics from the University of California, San Diego. He holds the Wealth Management Certified Professional® certification.

Thomas Paradise, CFA, is a senior manager in Vanguard’s Enterprise Advice Group. He leads a team of methodology engineers who design and build financial models for conducting research and serving investors. His research includes tax-efficient investing, life-cycle optimization, direct indexing, and financial planning. He previously held positions in investment research and software development at Vanguard. His work has been published in The Journal of Beta Investment Strategies and Financial Analysts Journal.

Tom earned a B.S. in mechanical engineering from Bucknell University. He is a CFA charterholder.