Nir Bar Dea

Nir Bar Dea is Bridgewater’s Chief Executive Officer, responsible for setting and driving the strategic goals of the company and overseeing the day-to-day management of the firm. He is also a Partner, a member of the Operating Board of Directors, chairs the Executive Committee, and is a member of the Operating Committee.

Nir’s career at Bridgewater began in the Research department, where he took on the opportunity to shape the future of the organization, working closely with company leadership to drive the key transformative initiatives in the investment function and beyond. Under Nir’s stewardship, the firm’s front office was reimagined by fully integrating the Research, Account Management, and Trading departments into the unified Investment Engine that exists today.

More recently, Nir served as Co-Head of the Investment Engine, where he worked closely with the Co-Chief Investment Officers and CEO to manage the Investment Engine and spearhead Bridgewater’s holistic department-level strategic vision. While in that role, Nir was responsible for the establishment of Bridgewater’s Investment Committee, an important step in the transition of the firm’s investment governance to the next generation of talent.

In February 2021, Nir was named Deputy CEO, a role in which he partnered with then-CEO David McCormick in managing the firm. With David, Nir established the decision-making structures used to guide the strategic and operational management of the company — the Executive, Operating and Commercial Committees. Leading up to and throughout his time as Deputy CEO, Nir — with the team — directed Bridgewater’s response to the COVID pandemic: from maintaining business continuity through remote work, to establishing safety posture and protocols, to thinking critically about the future of work at Bridgewater. In January 2022, he was named Bridgewater’s Co-CEO.

Prior to joining Bridgewater in 2015, Nir served as Advisor to the Israeli Mission to the United Nations in the 2014 General Assembly. He also has a diverse background in entrepreneurship, having run a multinational real estate investment operation and founded a drone technology start up. Originally from outside Tel Aviv, Nir is a retired major and a platoon leader in the Israeli Defense Forces.

Nir received his MBA from Wharton and his bachelor’s degree in Finance from the Interdisciplinary Center at IDC Herzliya, where he graduated first in his class. In 2020, Nir was named one of Fortune’s “40 Under 40” in Finance and he currently sits on the global board of Global Citizen, whose mission is to defeat poverty, demand equity, and defend the planet.

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