Who Is Divya Nettimi? First Woman To Start Billion-Dollar Hedge Fund

Nettimi, who has completed her MBA from Harvard Business School, launched a hedge fund called Avala Global.

Indian-origin investor Divya Nettimi charted history on Monday, 3 October, by becoming the first woman to start her own billion-dollar hedge fund.

(Photo Courtesy: Facebook/Divya Nettimi)

Indian-origin investor Divya Nettimi is all set to chart history by becoming the first woman to start her own billion-dollar hedge fund.

With more than $1 billion of commitments, Nettimi's Avala Global marks the largest launch of a woman-led firm in the industry’s history and is among the biggest ones to debut this year, as per a Bloomberg report.

While the fund's commencement hasn't been announced publically so far, the report, citing sources, indicates that Avala Global has begun investing the majority of the cash, with the rest expected to arrive early in the first quarter.

Forbes 30 Under 30 List, Harvard MBA

Nettimi, 36, studied Biomechanical Engineering at Stanford University from 2004-2008. She went on to complete her MBA from Harvard Business School in 2014, where she co-managed the premier institute's Alpha Fund as a student.

Nettimi has worked as an associate for Goldman Sachs for four years, focusing on its internal hedge fund. She also has seven years of experience as a portfolio manager for Ole Andreas Halvorsen's Viking Global Investors, where she was working until last year.

At Viking, Nettimi managed more than $4 billion as head of the firm’s global technology, media, and telecommunications investments, as per a Business Standard report. She also led Viking’s investments in Microsoft, Amazon.com, ServiceNow, and Singapore-based Sea Ltd.

Nettimi was part of Forbes' '30 Under 30 - Finance' list for the year 2016, for "[i]nfluencing billions of dollars of stock investments at $30 billion hedge fund, focussing on the ecommerce and retail sectors."

After she quit Viking Global in 2021, Nettimi was named in another Forbes article on the welcome spate of women launching hedge funds.

Of the thousands of hedge funds, only about 80 are run by women, according to the Kresge Foundation, which tracks diversity of managers.

(With inputs from Bloomberg.)