Fordham Law alumna Dianne McKeever ’15 was featured in a New York Times piece about the activist hedge fund company she co-founded, Ides Capital.
Ms. McKeever, 38, and her partner and co-founder of Ides Capital in Manhattan, Robert Longnecker, 42, saw diversification as a missing part of the typical activist strategy.
Ides, which was started about a year ago, has a short track record, with only one public battle — and the fund is small. But it appears to be the first activist hedge fund in the United States fronted by a woman, according to data compiled by Josh Black of Activist Insight, a research firm that tracks the subject.
Like any other hedge fund, Ides seeks to generate returns from its investments and sees diversifying small and midsize corporate boardrooms as a way to help improve stock prices.
“Weak governance practices, including a lack of diversity, coincides frequently with poor valuations,” Ms. McKeever said in an interview. “Those improvements, in our minds, are no-brainers.”
In starting Ides, Ms. McKeever is charging through the notoriously male-dominated world of activist investing…
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Ms. McKeever grew up in Indianapolis. Her father was a small-business owner who taught her about companies by letting her buy and sell stocks at a young age. She moved to the New York area for college, majoring in chemistry at New York University and chemical engineering at Stevens Institute of Technology, and later attended law school at Fordham.