Leadership
Brian Zola
Portfolio Manager - Consumer & Esoteric
Ahead of joining 1543 Capital at inception, Brian was Co-Head of Structured Finance and a Partner at DW Partners for a decade where he sourced and closed over $900mn of private credit deals.
He is highly experienced at sourcing, analyzing, structuring, and investing in private credit and structured finance opportunities with a focus on consumer and esoteric assets.
From 2003 - 2008, Brian was a Vice President at Lehman Brothers with responsibility for consumer and esoteric asset-backed research, evaluating trading opportunities for the non-mortgage ABS book and the firm’s clients.
Brian began his career as a Financial Analyst at the Industrial Bank of Japan.
He has an MBA, UCLA Anderson School of Management and BA, Economics, from the University of Chicago.
Andrew Ulmer
Founder & Chief Investment Officer
Andrew has invested in private credit, structured finance, and corporate issues for two decades as a PM with DW Partners, Brevan Howard and Goldman Sachs before founding 1543 Capital in 2019.
During 2008 - 2009 he built the structured finance business at Brevan Howard which was spun into DW Partners. During 2009-2016 Andrew successfully invested in structured finance and private credit, while hiring and managing a team of up to 10 investment and risk professionals.
He is experienced in credit and structured finance fund launches and with setting up the infrastructure to host sophisticated platforms for risk, trading and valuation systems, and procedures.
He has a PhD, Astrophysical Sciences from Princeton and a BA. Physics from Reed College.
Geoff Williams
Portfolio Manager - Commercial Real Estate & Generalist
Prior to joining 1543 Capital at inception, Geoff served as Managing Member of Lodgepole Holdings from 2016 - 2019 where he focused on investments in assets ranging from commercial real estate to micro-cap public market businesses, including the acquisition of a US regional mall in partnership with a global insurer.
During 2003 - 2016 he was a MD at Goldman Sachs, co-running the CMBS, CDO and commercial real estate loan trading business having taken on increasing responsibilities in market making and risk managing structured product correlation trades.
Geoff also worked in structured credit investing through a proprietary trading desk and in asset-backed security finance.
He has a BA, Physics, Magna cum Laude, from Columbia College.