2026 Austin IDEAS Lunch: Optimising Access to Alpha

Clint Carlson

Chief Investment Officer, Clarson Capital

Mr. Carlson founded Carlson Capital in 1993. He is responsible for leading all aspects of investment strategy and portfolio management at the firm. He also leads the monitoring and execution of the Firm’s risk management processes. For five years prior to founding Carlson Capital, Mr. Carlson was Head of Risk Arbitrage for the investment arm of the Bass Brothers organization. Before joining the Bass organization, Mr. Carlson co-managed a risk arbitrage fund for Maxxam Group and affiliated companies.

Mr. Carlson received a B.A. and an M.B.A. from Rice University and a law degree from the University of Houston. He is a current member of the Board of Overseers at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University.

Tony Caruso

Managing Director, Hedge Funds, UTIMCO

Tony Caruso joined UTIMCO in July 2018 and is a Managing Director on the Hedge Funds team. Tony is responsible for managing the endowment’s $9B Stable Value Hedge Fund portfolio, which consists of a collection of diversifying strategies that exhibit low beta to traditional risk assets.

Prior to joining UTIMCO, Tony was in a similar role as Head of Non-Directional Strategies at Mesirow Advanced Strategies, a fund of hedge funds with peak assets of $14B. Prior to Mesirow, Tony was a trader at Bridgewater Associates, a $160B hedge fund located in Westport, CT. At Bridgewater, Tony was responsible for managing the firm's fixed income trading activity, which included developed market rates, emerging market debt, corporate debt, and inflation-linked bonds. Prior to Bridgewater, Tony was a trader at Marquette Partners, a Chicago-based proprietary trading firm that was one of the leading market makers in futures and options.

Tony received his MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business with a concentration in Analytic Finance, Econometrics, and Statistics. Tony graduated from Duke University in 2003 with a BS in Economics. Tony is also a CFA Charterholder.

Tom Doris Ph.D

Head of Quantitative Analytics, Carlson Capital

Mr. Doris joined Carlson Capital in February 2022 and brings over 20 years of experience in quant trading, technology, and finance. He started as an R+D engineer at Intel and holds patents for his work on optimizing compilers and multicore processors.

He worked at Marshall Wace in optimizing alpha capture and quant trading. In 2011 he co-founded and was CEO of the fintech startup OTAS, specializing in real-time market analytics for traders, and led the firm to a successful exit in 2017. Prior to joining Carlson, he spent four years as Chief Data Scientist at Liquidnet.

Tom holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science specializing in Computational Neuroscience & AI.

Dale West CFA

SBAI Trustee Emeritus; Senior MD, Public Markets, Teacher Retirement System of Texas

Dale West is the Senior Managing Director of Public Markets at the Teacher Retirement System of Texas in Austin, Texas, the pension plan for 2 million Texas teachers, education employees, and beneficiaries. Mr. West's team oversees the Trust's $122 billion portfolio of publicly traded securities, including both internal and externally managed strategies. TRS’ portfolio includes $27 billion in hedge funds and $9 billion in opportunistic and credit investments. Mr. West joined TRS in 2008 and serves on the Internal Investment Committee and Executive team.

Prior to joining TRS, Mr. West was based in London with the emerging markets equity team of T. Rowe Price International, where he covered telecoms and emerging markets. He also served in the U.S. Foreign Service, including a three-year posting to the American embassy in Bucharest, Romania.

Mr. West received an MBA from Stanford University and is a graduate of the University of Texas at Austin.

Steven Wilson

Head of Portable Alpha, Teacher Retirement System of Texas

Steven Wilson is Director in the Public Markets group at the Teacher Retirement System of Texas, a $200 billion pension system serving 1.8 million active and retired educators and their families. Mr. Wilson is responsible for the $10B Stable Value Hedge Fund Portfolio, which includes allocations to Equity Market Neutral, Macro, Managed Futures, Platform, Volatility, and Reinsurance Hedge Funds. He is also responsible for the $7B World Equity Portfolio, which includes Beta Sensitive strategies benchmarked to global equity indices.

Prior to joining TRS, Mr. Wilson was an Investment Director at Ameriprise Private Wealth Advisors, where he oversaw fund selection for $250 million of client assets.

Mr. Wilson received an MBA from the Rice University Jones School of Business in 2012, is a graduate of the University of Texas at Austin McCombs School of Business, and holds the CAIA designation.