Who We Are

Ela is a senior executive with 25 years of international investments and executive leadership experience with over 20 years dedicated to research, trading, portfolio management and construction in the alternatives and absolute return space. Prior to launching EKR, Ela was the Head of Total Fund Management team at BCI, one of the largest institutional asset managers in North America with assets over $200 billion.

Previously Ela was a Managing Director, Multi-Asset Strategies at Investment Management Corporation of Ontario and WSIB, where she oversaw the $8.5 billion Multi-Asset Strategies portfolio and led the investment team that managed WSIB’s $35 billion portfolio. Ela also held the roles of Vice President of Currency and Asset Allocation team at CIBC Asset Management and Principal and Senior Manager Research Consultant in the Alternatives team at Mercer, covering a broad set of absolute return and hedge fund strategies.

Prior to Mercer, Ela was the Head of Research and Trading at a New York-based quantitative macro hedge fund and worked in the areas of credit derivatives and asset management at Merrill Lynch, New York. She started out her career as a currency and bond trader in Turkey.

Ela is a frequent speaker and a globally published investment thought leader in institutional asset management. Amongst the awards she has received are the “Global Leading Innovator” in 2020 and “Hedge Fund Rising Star” in 2018 by The Institutional Investor, one of the leading publications in the institutional investment field.

Ela also writes on international finance and portfolio management in global financial markets at TurcoMoney, an international money & finance publication.

Ela has earned her MBA from Georgetown University in 2000. She has been a CFA Charterholder since 2002 and a CAIA Charterholder since 2010. Ela serves as the Co-Head for CAIA Toronto since 2018.