Axioma, a provider of enterprise market risk and portfolio analytics solutions, announced today that Christopher Woida, previously an investment strategist and a founding member of the Factor-Based Strategies Group at BlackRock, has joined the company as Managing Director, Index Solutions, responsible for strategy, development and sales in Axioma’s rapidly growing indexing initiative.
“Chris brings a superb combination of strategic, sales and development skills to Axioma’s indexing initiative,” said Sebastian Ceria, Chief Executive Officer of Axioma. “This is a classic case of talent meets opportunity, and we’re delighted to have Chris joining the team.”
Axioma’s index business leverages Axioma’s portfolio-construction expertise and solutions to build systematic indices for third parties, mainly index providers, investment banks and asset managers.
During his seven years at BlackRock, Woida helped to build the company’s smart beta and factor-based platforms. He contributed to the design of the company’s first fixed income smart beta ETF, and its quantitative fixed income liquid alternatives mutual fund. More recently, he was the lead investment strategist for BlackRock’s flagship style factor hedge fund.
Woida was previously with Deutsche Bank Securities for two years, specialising in fixed income structured sales. He began his career at Intel Corporation, where he was a Senior R&D Engineer. He is a graduate of The University of Chicago, with an MBA in Analytic Finance and Accounting; Columbia University, with an MS is Engineering and Management Systems; and University of Wisconsin-Madison, with a BS in Industrial Engineering.