General Investing >> Money Manager Interviews >> August 5, 2014

Balancing Risk and Return with a Top-Down Approach

Sri-Kumar, Komal S.
Dr. Komal S. Sri-Kumar is President of the Santa Monica, California-based Sri-Kumar Global Strategies, Inc., a macroeconomic consulting firm he formed in January 2013 to advise multinational firms and sovereign wealth funds on global risk and opportunities. Prior to founding the firm, Dr. Sri-Kumar worked at the Los Angeles-based Trust Company of the West, or TCW, from 1990 to 2012, serving for the last several years as the firm’s Chief Global Strategist. He has been Chairman of TCW’s Comprehensive Asset Allocation Committee since 1997 and will continue to serve TCW clients in that capacity. Before his work at TCW, Dr. Sri-Kumar was Senior Vice President at the Beverly Hills-based Drexel Burnham Lambert and Executive Vice President of DBL Americas, specializing in country risk analysis. He is a senior fellow at the Milken Institute, and is a member of the Columbia University Graduate School of Arts and Sciences alumni board. His articles and interviews have been published in the Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times. He is often interviewed on CNBC, Bloomberg Radio and TV, and Fox Business. Dr. Sri-Kumar holds an M.A. in economics from the Delhi School of Economics, and Master of Philosophy and Ph.D. degrees from Columbia University. His doctoral dissertation at Columbia University was supervised by Robert Mundell, 1999 Nobel Laureate in economics. Profile
TWST: Please start by telling us why you decided to establish your own firm?

Dr. Sri-Kumar: I had done 22 years in my old firm and decided I wanted to become a consultant. This is not